Hoffman's tales

"I WOULD like to stay on sex," says Dustin Hoffman, having devoted the past ten minutes to talking about passion, fooling around and Barbra Streisand. At 67, the star of The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy is one of Hollywood's elder statesmen but, like his character in Meet The Fockers, he's something of a free spirit.

He's clearly enjoying life as much as Bernie Focker, a house husband with a wife Roz (Streisand) who works as a sex therapist to the elderly. This is a demonstrative man not afraid to express his feelings and hug and kiss.

"My kids say that what I do on the screen has more of the qualities of the way I am at home than any other film I've done. I'm not like that all the time but that's a large side of myself at home behind closed doors that I had not done on film," he explains.

Bernie behaves in direct contrast to co-star Robert De Niro's uptight former CIA operative Jack, whose daughter Bernie's son plans to marry. Hoffman and Streisand got along well together. Reports that he played practical jokes on her are untrue. He points out they appeared in print before filming had begun.

"A few titbits that were published were all in that vein. In other words, there was going to be a war between us, we weren't going to get along. But that was all before we started filming," he says.

The opposite was true. The pair started out acting together in 1960 New York, studying at the same school. Hoffman went out with Streisand's room-mate Elaine. "She kept saying Barbra was a good singer and I learnt that she wouldn't sing for anyone because she didn't think singing was a serious endeavour and wanted to be an actor. So we did know each other but only through her room-mate," he says.

"We became famous and for the next 35 years would see each other on and off. What existed between us - and I know you hear this all the time - is an affection that was genuine because we'd gone through this journey together, not intimately, but we both started out poor. She slept in a Salvation Army cot and I was on a work scholarship, which meant I didn't have to pay for acting courses if I cleaned the toilets."

The Fockers had to be all over each other, letting it all hang out in contrast to Jack. So Hoffman improvised moves in character to take De Niro by surprise. "I know Bob doesn't like his space invaded. So I said, 'Don't tell him I want to feel his pecs and give him a kiss on the neck, and don't want him to know it's going to happen. That became the comic premise," he says.

Being passionate with Streisand was handled in another way. Hoffman isn't a fan of fake amorous situations on screen, where a couple have their tongues down each other's throats and the camera pans down to a pair of panties dropping to the ground.

"We all know that reality is 150 crew members there. To me, it's always a fake aspect of human behaviour. It doesn't happen in real life unless you're very young and fooling around," Hoffman continues.

"I'm not degrading passion but what we wanted was something we felt we hadn't seen on screen. I've known my wife 30 years and been married 23, and the sexuality that exists between us is a long foreplay which goes on during the day - a touch under the table, a hand on the elbow, not in an erotic but an affectionate way. Sometimes it's a look, sometimes a smile. I love the neck, snuggling into the neck. I said to Barbra, 'That's real to me' and she said, 'Do whatever you want'."

He paid her compliments along the lines of "Your breasts look great today" and "That's a great outfit for you", whispering such sweet nothings in her ear during scenes.

Having a Hollywood star willingly impart such details is unusual and, dissuaded from continuing talking about sex, Hoffman tells a saucy Scottish joke about a man in a kilt, his lack of underwear and a blue ribbon.

Despite his pensionable age, he shows no sign of slowing down. He's got his second wind after stopping work a few years ago having lost the "spark" of enjoying acting. He'd have been happy being an unsuccessful actor because he's just happy acting. Stardom happened and, like anyone else, he was compromised by success. "No matter how you fight it, it gets you," he says.

"You are a star whether you like it or not and you continue to perpetuate it. I didn't like the parts being offered and the business had changed. You can't blame the studios, it's part of the cancer that exists. They are in for 120 or 130 million dollars. They weren't interested in the kind of films I and people of my generation were interested in.

"The older you get, the less access you have to the leading roles because they're going to guys in their 20s and 30s. Suddenly you are supporting the lead. I thought that I'd stop and try writing or directing. I did this very quietly.

"Three years had gone by and I hadn't done anything. I wasn't aware of the depression that had set in. If you're a writer, you like to write; if you're a painter, you want to paint; and if you're an actor, you need to act.

"My wife said why don't you throw out all the rules you've had from the beginning, don't worry about the script or budget. Because by this point I should know whether I was going to have a creative, fulfilling experience by the director and people I'm going to work with."

So Hoffman has settled for smaller, but no less showy roles, in films including I Heart Huckabees, Finding Neverland and voicing a Shetland pony in Racing Stripes. "I've had the most fulfilling time I've had since I started getting work after doing Broadway," he says.

* Meet The Fockers (12A) previews in cinemas today (Thursday) and goes on general release tomorrow (Friday).

Published: 27/01/2005