Somewhere between his comic seduction by Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson and his anguish in the film's climactic wedding scene, Hoffman became a screen icon of unusual proportions. Although stardom for men in the American cinema had previously been reserved for the conventionally attractive or rugged, Hoffman succeeded in part because of his unconventional looks and short stature; he soon joined other less conventional looking performers like Barbra Streisand and Jack Nicholson as new stars for a new generation of moviegoers.
An Academy Award nomination for THE GRADUATE was followed by another Oscar-nominated performance, as Ratso Rizzo in MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969), an urban drama that was a landmark for new screen frankness in its depiction of the sordid world of street hustlers. Ratso was a wheezing, scruffy, dumb, tubercular loser; it was a case of an actor unafraid to immerse his already unconventional looks in a character even more physically unattractive. Notable too was Hoffman's willingness, after the huge success of THE GRADUATE, to take essentially a subsidiary role to the lead character played by Jon Voight.
JOHN AND MARY (1969), though not a critical success, showed Hoffman's ability to play a more conventional role as a young man, opposite Mia Farrow, confronting contemporary courtship rituals. In LENNY (1974), Hoffman was nominated for an Academy Award, again for an unpleasant characterization: a complex, multi-dimensional portrait of the hard-driving social comedian Lenny Bruce. In ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976), he played Carl Bernstein, the aggressive reporter who helped expose Nixon's Watergate crimes. STRAIGHT TIME (1978) failed to attract popular attention, but Hoffman's critically acclaimed performance as a hardcore criminal stands as a hallmark of his approach to performance, which eschews easy sentiment in favor of three-dimensional grit.
Hoffman scored a popular success in 1979 with his most accessible performance (and his first Academy Award), opposite Meryl Streep in KRAMER VS. KRAMER, as a father who must develop a relationship with his young son when his wife temporarily abandons them. If the subtext of KRAMER VS. KRAMER implied that a man could be a better mother than a woman, Hoffman's next film, TOOTSIE (1982) showed that a man could be a better woman than a woman. In this very funny comedy about role reversal, Hoffman plays an actor who masquerades as a woman in order to get a part on a soap opera and then promptly becomes a public role model as a liberated, feminist woman. Although TOOTSIE showed Hoffman's continuing interest in transforming his physical appearance, his performance is somewhat atypically (if appropriately) warm; on some level it seems a valentine to all underemployed actors, for whom Hoffman retains tremendous empathy.
His Broadway performance as Willy Loman in DEATH OF A SALESMAN, filmed in 1985, was the subject of mixed reviews. Competing with the ghost of Lee J. Cobb's original stage performance and Hoffman's own iconic definition as Benjamin Braddock, some critics found Hoffman too slight and too young - ignoring the fact that Hoffman was almost a decade older than Cobb when Cobb first played the role on Broadway, and that Arthur Miller had described Loman as a small and low man.
After the failure of ISHTAR (1987), Hoffman won a second Academy Award for his riveting portrayal of Raymond Babbit, an autistic savant in RAIN MAN (1988). Hoffman's performance is again notable not only for his physical transformation, but for his absolute unwillingness to become sentimental or maudlin; indeed, Raymond may be the most objective, unsentimental depiction of a handicapped person in the American cinema. RAIN MAN also suggests a transition point in screen history. Just as Hoffman came to prominence as the star for a 60s generation, his pairing in RAIN MAN opposite Tom Cruise suggests the passing of the mantle to a new star more accessible to the 80s generation of young filmgoers.
Hoffman's stubborn perfectionism has earned him, among some directors, a reputation for being difficult, but he remains one of the most respected and accomplished actors of his or any other generation. His portrayals of Mumbles in DICK TRACY (1990), gangster Dutch Schultz in BILLY BATHGATE (1991) and the villainous pirate Captain Hook in HOOK (1991) continued to surprise audiences with the diversity of Hoffman's talent.
Later notable screen credits include HERO (1992), OUTBREAK (1995), AMERICAN BUFFALO (1996), SLEEPERS (1996), WAG THE DOG (1997, another Oscar nomination), MOONLIGHT MILE (2002), RUNAWAY JURY and CONFIDENCE (both 2003), FINDING NEVERLAND, I HEART HUCKABEES, MEET THE FOCKERS and LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (all 2004), THE LOST CITY (2005), PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER and STRANGER THAN FICTION (both 2006), MR. MAGORIUM'S WONDER EMPORIUM (2007), and KUNG FU PANDA, THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX and LAST CHANCE HARVEY (all 2008).
Nominated for Actor 1967: THE GRADUATE
Nominated for Actor 1969: MIDNIGHT COWBOY
Nominated for Actor 1974: LENNY
Actor 1979: KRAMER VS. KRAMER
Nominated for Actor 1982: TOOTSIE
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role 1988: RAIN MAN
Nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role 1997: WAG THE DOG
7 nominations, 2 Awards