The Turbulent Filming of Kramer vs Kramer: Meryl Streep’s Nightmare with Dustin Hoffman

Los Angeles, CA – 1980: (L-R) Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep with their Academy Awards, appearing on the 52nd Academy Awards / 1980 Academy Awards, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, April 14, 1980. (Photo by Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

In 1979 Meryl Streep He received the opportunity of his life. She received her first leading role that would launch her into international stardom and give her her first Oscar for Best Actress. A role that, ironically, would also bring her her first disappointment on the big screen. The tape was called Kramer vs Kramer, the sad story of a divorce and the legal battle for custody of a child. If the topic was already dramatic and intense, What happened behind the scenes with Dustin Hoffman, his fellow protagonist, was a true nightmare For Meryl who, although years later she tried to downplay it, was quite a scandal.

When the Oscar-winning actress accepted the offer, her heart was broken by a personal event she had just experienced: the death of her boyfriend, John Cazale, whom she met in the play, Measure for measure, by William Shakespeare. The actor, then a promising young man who had participated with very good reviews in blockbusters such as The Godfather y The hunter, died suddenly due to lung cancer. Her relationship with Streep represented one of the most romantic love stories of the moment. “She had never met someone like that. The humanity of her, the curiosity of her about people, the compassion of her…” she recalled emotionally years later in the special John Cazale, I knew it was you. “He was crazy about her, and she was crazy about him. And they met,” recalled Al Pacino, partner and friend of both, who highlighted how the actress accompanied the actor until her last breath.

Cazale’s death left Meryl devastated and working would become a kind of therapy. And so it was that, shortly after, she came into his hands Kramer Vs Kramer. A script as powerful as it was challenging that I couldn’t say no to. What Meryl did not imagine is that the adventure, in addition to a statuette, would lead to some certainly unpleasant moments during filming.

Dustin Hoffman kisses Meryl Streep in a scene from the film ‘Kramer Vs. Kramer’, 1979. (Photo by Columbia Pictures/Getty Images)

His partner, then already a renowned actor in Hollywood thanks to films like The graduate, Midnight Cowboy o Papillon, was not as pleasant and empathetic as she would have expected, especially in those circumstances she was going through. They both became a divorced couple in Kramer Vs Kramer, beginning a rather turbulent filming. In an interview with TIME magazine in 1979, recapitulated by the site Slate Years later, Meryl recalled her first meeting with her colleague. “He came up to me and said, ‘I’m Dustin -burp- Hoffman.’ And he put his hand on my breasts,” he recapped that surreal moment. “‘What a disgusting pig,’ I thought.”

Continue reading the story

A detestable gesture that 50 years later would have been unacceptable and would have earned the performer his career. They were different times, another mentality and many fears on the part of women, then less valued, recognized and listened to. Merly decided to turn the page and look elsewhere. But what starts badly, ends badly. In his attempt to put the acting techniques learned into practice, the actor crossed unexpected limits that the writer Michael Shulman, author of the book Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streephe said without mincing words.

Among the many things he picked up was the slap Dustin gave Meryl in front of everyone and without it being in the script. On the second day of filming, both protagonists had to do the scene where Ted follows his wife down a hallway. “Suddenly something happened that shocked not only Meryl, but everyone on set. Dustin slapped her across the face, leaving a red mark,” Schulman wrote (via Vanity Fair). When everyone thought that this was the end and that the actress would report everyone to the Screen Actors Guild, they were suddenly perplexed by Meryl’s reaction. She “continued with the scene. She grabbed onto her trench coat and begged Ted, her character, ‘Don’t make me go in there!'” she said, following the script’s lines.

Years later, the actress remembered that slap and what she felt. “My character was angry, I was getting ready to leave and he looked at me and slapped me with all his might. In the film you can see the mark on my face, I was so shocked, but it prepared me to create my feeling for him,” said the artist in her participation in the show. Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.

Why didn’t he react differently? They asked themselves many questions later. Meryl also told the reason for her reaction. “It’s complex because when you’re an actor and you’re in the scene you have to feel free. I’m sure I’ve unintentionally hurt people in the physical scenes,” she told The New York Times. His early youth and innocence had a lot to do with his patience with Hoffman. “There is a certain amount of forgiveness in that sense. It was my first film and my first scene, and suddenly he comes and slaps me… I think those things need to be corrected at the time. They are not politically correct, they have been fixed. They will be solved, because people will not accept it anymore. And that’s the good thing about all of this… Back then, when everyone was taking cocaine, there was a lot of inexcusable behavior. But now we are older and more sober. There has to be forgiveness, at least that’s how I feel,” he explained about it in that interview.

The thing could have ended there. But not. In case this had not been enough in the preparation of the scene, Dustin, according to the actress’s biography, excerpts of which the magazine published Vanity Fair, would have continued to poke its finger into the sore spot and hurt Meryl to the core. And all to achieve the perfect and emotional scene that will leave the viewer in shock. In the shot where Joanna’s character has to cry and tell her husband that she is leaving him and doesn’t love him anymore, the actor Rain Man He came up with the brilliant idea of ​​saying unpleasant things to his partner to destabilize her. Among others, she reminds him of the death of her boyfriend, John Cazale, due to cancer and her terrible end.

While for Hoffman it was pure improvisation and acting techniques to make the scene more believable, for the others It was considered a true horror episode. “He was provoking her using things he knew about her personal life and John’s in order to see her react the way he thought she should in that scene,” said Richard Fischoff, producer of this film in the book. Was it really necessary? resort to such an action and thus harm her partner? With a pale face, Meryl finished her part and left the studio quite upset by what had happened.

But the show had to go on, they were too involved. The story was promising and the protagonist Memories of Africa, he left the emotional aside to focus only on the professional. She chose to accept and continue. She had caught Dustin’s intention and wasn’t going to give up his role. Not even when she threw a wine glass against the wall that bounced into his hair. Dustin, according to the biography about the actress and that she dissected Vanity Fairhad a suggestion in another scene with Meryl that he never let her know and that could have cost him his physical integrity.

The actor had spoken with a cameraman to ask him if the shot would capture the case of hitting the glass and smashing it against the wall. “Just move it a little to the left,” the coach would have told him in a whisper. What was about to happen would become one of the key scenes in the film, but also one of the biggest scares for everyone, especially Meryl. It happens in the shot where Joanna returns to tell her ex-husband that she wants her son back after giving up custody of her. In the middle of the agitated conversation, Dustin’s character stands up and throws the glass against the wall with all his might. He wasn’t in the script. The blow was so hard that they say the particles of the glass landed on the actress’s hair, who jumped from her chair. “Next time you do that, I’d appreciate it if you told me,” she said.

In 2017, Hoffman, then 80, was accused of sexually harassing writers Wendy Riss Gatsiounis and Anna Graham Hunter. That unearthed the statements that Meryl made on her day about how she touched her chest, and they gained more prominence than ever. The reaction of the first actress was immediate through her representative. Once again, in peace and forgiveness. “There was an offense and it is something for which Dustin apologized. Meryl accepted it,” read the mini statement collected by media such as Yahoo!

The multi-award-winning actress, who has always been in favor of feminism and the progress of women in society throughout her career and life, expressed years later in the cited article from The New York Times, why this had been his position. “I don’t want to ruin someone’s mature life. I just don’t want to do it. I believe that, if the world is to move forward, we must find a way to work together, and know that it is better for men to respect us as equals“.

The film had its shadows, but its lights must also be highlighted. Among them, the nine Oscar nominations, of which it won five, and the overwhelming success around the world that made the film gross more than 105 million dollars. But, above all, the scope of a topic as universal and current as divorce with children and the importance of assuming responsibilities as adults.

This article was written exclusively for Yahoo en Español by Cine54.

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED | ON VIDEO

Robin Williams’ daughter criticizes the use of AI to recreate her father’s voice

It’s time to say goodbye to action heroes as we knew them

‘The Exorcist’ led Linda Blair to feel one of the biggest disappointments of her career

Robin Williams and the insult of Artificial Intelligence when it changed Hollywood forever

2023-10-05 08:17:46
#actor #apologize #Meryl #Streep #crossing #boundaries