Dustin Hoffman says he backed the #MeToo movement when it erupted in 2017, even as he became one of the actors swept up in its allegations, according to his new memoir, Look at Me.
The Academy Award-winning actor writes that he welcomed the reckoning that followed The New York Times investigation into Harvey Weinstein, believing it was overdue for an industry where, in his words, “plenty of women had put up with way too much for way too long.”
“When a reckoning started making its way around the internet and tearing through Hollywood, I thought it was a very good thing,” Hoffman wrote. “Not for a second did I worry that anything negative would be said about me, because the idea of taking something from someone sexually that they didn’t want to give … it’s just not something I’ve ever done. Or been tempted to do.”
That confidence was tested when eight women came forward with allegations against Hoffman, including indecent exposure, lewd comments, and forced oral sex.
“I was sort of bewildered by how to defend myself … or if I should even try,” Hoffman wrote. “I didn’t want to be fighting against something that I thought was important. I didn’t want to be on the wrong side of my own values. The only problem was that things were being said about me that just weren’t true.”
Hoffman acknowledged that some of his past conduct may have made women uncomfortable, while cautioning that the term carries no fixed meaning.
“I’m sure it’s true that in my life, especially forty years ago, I made some women uncomfortable. … But ‘uncomfortable’ is a subjective emotional state. What is crass and offensive to one person, another individual might find hilarious.”
At the time the allegations surfaced, Hoffman said publicly that he felt “terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation,” adding that it did not reflect his character.
In the memoir, Hoffman says the episode pushed him to reconsider how his behavior on set might have landed differently with women than with men.
“If I were a woman, would bawdy jokes between takes seem threatening instead of fun to me? Would I have a totally different sense of humor? This is something I’ve thought about a lot,” Hoffman wrote. “And honestly? My guess is probably not. I’ve spent my life analyzing character, human behavior and I don’t think women are inherently any more wholesome than men are.”
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