Dustin Hoffman’s most difficult role? This is neither a tussle nor a marathon man!

Now 86, Dustin Hoffman is a legendary actor who has long had nothing to prove. The son of a decorator, he studied drama at the Pasadena Community Theater before traveling to New York to study with the famous Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio.

But his beginnings were particularly arduous, as he recalled in a fascinating portrait published in 2016. guardian : It would take him five tries to join the prestigious school founded by Lee Strasberg, along with future classmates Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman.

Trained in the method acting of Robert De Niro or Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman was known for being a selfless actor with a degree of investment in his roles. The most famous example is Marathon Man.

Between grueling races, strict diets and attempts at suffocation during the famous scene where Dr. Selly’s landlords break into his house while he is in his bath, to the point where the producer had to administer crucial oxygen to the actor, Method. Acting on set really annoyed Laurence Olivier, to the point where he released his famous apostrophe: “Why don’t you try playing? It’s so much easier!”

A two-time Oscar winner for Best Actor, in 1980 for Kramer vs. Kramer and in 1989 for Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman has many masterpieces on his CV, some of which marked the history of cinema: The President’s Men, Macadam Cowboy, Little Big Man, The Graduate, which made him the first earned an Oscar nomination in 1968; Tootsie by Sidney Pollack.

Or his extraordinary, very intense composition Lenny at Bob Fosse, where he plays one of the most famous and controversial American comedians of the 60s. In an interview with the magazine The Rolling Stones In December 1974, the actor considered this to be the most intense and difficult role of his career.

Is it still the same after 50 years? Not really… With such a wide range of roles, one would logically think that Dustin Hoffman would easily reference Ratso Rizzo’s role in the film. Macadam Cowboy For example. Or why not his brilliant composition in Papillon by Franklin J. Schaffner. Or even the exhausting Sam Peckinpai of Straw Dogs. He obviously didn’t know him well.

In March 2016, he stated that the most challenging role of his career was… voicing Master Shifu in the Kung Fu Panda saga. “I’m very serious” – he said into the microphone The Huffington Post; “Animation is seriously the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I hated it. I thought I’d be in a room with other people to screw around, but instead I was alone for hours. When I got home, I said, ‘I just finished my first day at work.’