Now you see him, now you don't
Dustin Hoffman slips into 'Kung Fu' character - but then, he's an old hand at the disappearing act
 Dustin Hoffman attending the premiere of "Kung Fu Panda." (AP Photo/Gus Ruelas) |
LOS ANGELES - Dustin Hoffman isn't the first serious film actor to clean up at the box office by turning out a few family-friendly blockbusters. Unlike many others, though, Hoffman actually acts in these films, bringing depth and nuance to roles he could easily phone in as cartoon caricatures of his own persona.
In "Kung Fu Panda," which opened Friday, Hoffman transforms into Shifu, the diminutive, embittered martial arts master charged with teaching a hopelessly inelegant Jack Black his craft. Complex and restrained, Hoffman's is a performance worthy of a human, not the campy animal vaudeville we're used to hearing spout from the mouths of animated creatures. As one of the iconic actors of his generation, how does Hoffman avoid starring as himself?
Well, he doesn't, exactly.
"Anyone who has lived a life knows that they are not one person," Hoffman said in Los Angeles recently, between bites of dry bran cereal straight from the box and sips of a thick green drink from a glass goblet. "You keep devolving, if that's a word, or evolving. So that's no different from creating a character," he said. "I always feel I am inhabiting something that is already a part of me. You don't find characters - they are already there."
Take Hoffman's portrayal of Ted in "Kramer vs. Kramer." He presented an emotionally affecting portrait of a dad in the throes of divorce because he was a dad in the throes of divorce. "That was coming from a real place. I even said to the writer of the movie, 'What I'm reading - what you gave me - does not have much to do with what I'm going through. And I'm not saying the facts, but what a divorce is really about.' . . . The fracture is what people really don't understand, unless they've been through it." The writer agreed to let Hoffman contribute to the script, and their collaboration led to an armful of Oscars.
It's one thing to play at divorce when you're going through it; another to discover the red panda within - especially when you have a reputation as a serious actor to uphold. "Initially, I didn't want to do it. I know Jeff Katzenberg [CEO of DreamWorks Animation, the studio that produced the project], and he called me about it, and I said to him, 'I come from a generation where we call them cartoons.' "
Hoffman reluctantly agreed to a meeting with Katzenberg and the film's directors, Mark Osborne and John Stevenson. "They said, 'What are your hesitations?' and they showed me a sketch. I said, 'I don't want to do anything that's two-dimensional. Where's the third dimension?' And they said, 'Well, a lot of movies are two-dimensional. What do you mean by that?' I said the third dimension is usually the contradiction in someone, the part that they are not aware of. So they said, 'He's intolerant, and he's authoritative, and he's kind of like a demagogue. And hopefully he will arrive to a point where he will open himself a little to that, after he realizes that he's been living a lie.' And I said OK, let's try to do it."
Hoffman's character, Shifu, is the kung-fu master responsible for whipping the film's unlikely hero into fighting shape, and his character's rigidity is a study in repression. Not a kindly little bear, but an embittered taskmaster. Shifu worries his life has been a waste - until he meets Po.
While compelled by Shifu's emotional and psychological complexity, Hoffman prefers acting outside a sound booth. "I cannot say that I enjoyed the experience, because you work in a room with a microphone." The process is mostly solitary - working conditions that can give an actor pause. Hoffman wasn't sure things would turn out to his satisfaction, but he took precautions to safeguard his reputation by securing a gentleman's agreement from the filmmakers. "Mike Myers had done 'Shrek,' and when they got back to him [with the finished film], he said, 'OK, let's do it all over.' I said I wanted that agreement. . . . But it didn't have to come to that."
Hoffman's existential detective in "I Heart Huckabees" or his crochety theater producer in "Finding Neverland," these aren't roles you'd expect of an elder Hollywood statesman, but the kind of parts grabbed by an intelligent character actor trying to make a name for himself.
With his spry physique and thick, brushy hair, Hoffman appears younger than his 70 years. Still, why does he choose to continually search for new facets of himself, instead of playing himself in film after film, as some of his contemporaries do?
"I wish I could find my persona!" he said, laughing. "I'm envious of the kind of person who . . . repeats that person that the audience comes to see. The film I just did with Emma Thompson comes closest to myself in that sense. . . . When I did '[Meet the] Fockers,' my kids laughed and said, 'Dad, you finally became the person that you are in the house!' "
It's hard to believe a master shapeshifter like Hoffman would envy the people who mark the same steps over and over again. "But I think I would if I could," Hoffman said, "If I was handsome right from the get-go, I think I would. Think of the great line from Cary Grant. . . . [Someone] said to him, 'How does it feel to be Cary Grant? Because every woman in the world wants to sleep with you, and every man in the world wants to be you,' and he says, 'I can only tell you that every morning when I wake up, I, too, would like to be Cary Grant!' "
Like many of his fans, Hoffman looks back at his early roles with some amazement. "If I had to do those characters now that I did 20 years ago, would I be doing it? I don't know the answer."
