On winning Best Picture
A hard sell,Midnight Cowboystruggled to get financing and upset preview audiences.
When we started having screenings, people would get up and leave.
They were so offended, Hoffman recalls.
Credit: Everett Collection
Not that he places much stock in awards.
The actor was also unhappy with the final cut of his performance.
There were certain things I wished had been in the film, he says.
Everett Collection
I left [the U.S.] because I was in a state of upset.
I have my own disappointment, even though its a terrific movie.
Still, he wasnt shocked whenMidnight Cowboybeat the odds to win Best Picture.
Everett Collection
Its a love story, and maybe a love story we hadnt seen before, Hoffman says.
People just sat there [crying] when it was over.
Its a surprise when something hits you that strongly.
The film also won Best Director (John Schlesinger) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Waldo Salt).
Midnight Cowboycame his way a year later, but Schlesinger didnt even want to meet Hoffman at first.
So Hoffman cooked up a plan to convince him otherwise.
That was hookers and hustlers and drugs that was 42nd Street.
Very disreputable, Hoffman remembers.
I wanted him to see that I [could] mix in with those people.
He was talked into it, and he met me there.
He felt I did fit right in.
In the film, Rizzo is miserable washing dishes at a restaurant and dreams of rising up the ranks.
I said, I think hes Ratso as a success.
This is what Ratso would have liked to have been, Hoffman explains.
We had dinner there, and [Schlesinger] completely agreed.
We were on the same page, so he agreed I could play the part.
The Im walkin here came out it was not written.
It was not scripted, he insists.
The confusion may stem from the fact that they shot multiple takes of the moment.
Originally, the scene was scripted as being standing or seated, but Schlesinger decided to make it on-the-move.
We had to steal the shot, which is what we did, Hoffman says.
That taxi almost hit us because it jumped the signal.
That aspect of almost being hit was nowhere written in the scene.
Probably what I was really saying was, Hey, were making a movie here!
But it just came out the way it came out, Hoffman muses.
