Dustin Hoffman was brought to tears during an archived interview with the American Film Institute in which the actor touched on societal notions of beauty he considered while filming "Tootsie."
The 1982 film starring Hoffman and Jessica Lange tells of a struggling actor who gains the reputation of being difficult-this makes it even harder for him to find work on stage, so he decides to adopt a female persona to make some money. Often, critics have hailed "Tootsie" as a comedic work of art, but, as Hoffman revealed in his interview, there was more to the narrative than laughs.
Hoffman said the movie was "never a comedy" for him-in fact, it led him to have an epiphany concerning just how much men inadvertently strengthen excessive female standards of beauty on a societal scale.
The actor said that he told "Tootsie" directors his participation in the film was contingent upon whether or not he could actually pass for a woman-he asked them to do makeup tests before the film went to production.
Upon catching a first glimpse of himself in full drag makeup, Hoffman said that he did look like a woman, but was surprised by his visage.
"I was shocked that I wasn't more attractive," he admitted during the interview. "I said, 'Now you have me looking like a woman, now make me beautiful.' I thought I should be beautiful if I was going to be a woman."
But the makeup artists insisted they'd done all they could, which caused Hoffman to realize the way he had treated women in the past based on their physical looks was unfair.
It was at that moment I had an epiphany, and I went home and started crying. Talking to my wife, I said I have to make this picture, and she said, "Why?" and I said, "Because I think I am an interesting woman when I look at myself on the screen. And I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character because she doesn't fulfill physically the demands that we're brought up to think women have to have in order to ask them out." She says, "What are you saying?" And I said, "There's too many interesting women I have...not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed."
He then dissolved into tears, trying to choke them back as he finished his sentence.
Watch the video below.
