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You Go To The Cinema And You Realize You're Watching The Third Act. There Is No First Or Second Act. There Is This Massive Film-making Where You Spend This Incredible Amount Of Money And Play Right To The Demographic. You Can Tell How Much Money The Film Is Going To Make By How It Does On The First Weekend. The Whole Culture Is In The Crap House. It's Not Just True In The Movies, It's Also True In The Theater.

-Dustin Hoffman

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You Go To The

Dustin Hoffman

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You Go To The Cinema And You Realize You're Watching The Third Act. There Is No First Or Second Act. There Is This Massive Film-making Where You Spend This Incredible Amount Of Money And Play Right To The Demographic. You Can Tell How Much Money The Film Is Going To Make By How It Does On The First Weekend. The Whole Culture Is In The Crap House. It's Not Just True In The Movies, It's Also True In The Theater.

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What Makes Divorce Happen Is That You Can't Be In The Same Space Any More, For Whatever Reason - But The Love Stays. And That's The Killer. That's Where The Vehemence And Anger And Rage Comes From.

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Tom [courtenay] And Albert Finney Met Ron Harwood On The Dresser, So That's How It Started. It's A Wonderful Documentary. It's Called Tosca's Kiss And Mr Hardwood Told Me About It When I Asked Him What The Genesis Was. It Was Made In 1983 And Verdi, Who Was Rich And Successful, Toward The End Of His Life Decided To Build A Mansion For Himself In Milan, Where He Lived, And He Stipulated That When He Died Opera Singers And Musicians - Because He Knew So Many Who Were No Longer Playing At The Scala And Some Were Poor - Could Live There.

Acting Didn't Solve Much! If It Did, I Would Have Ended Up Much Less Crazy Than I Am Today, But I'm Not. At Least For Me, Acting Is A Relief - A Relief To Be Able To Admit Certain Things About Myself And Disguise In My Work, In My Characters.

So When I Told My Parents I Wanted To Go Into Acting Because I Was Flunking Out Of My First Year Of Junior College, They Were Relieved That I Had Picked Something Other Than Joining The Army. But I Can't Imagine How They Had High Hopes For Me.

My Wife Always Says That I Will Be Stuck With This Forever: I Am The Difficult One. With Jack Nicholson They Always Said It Was Drugs. Warren Beatty Is Supposed To Have Screwed Everything That Jumped Off The Curve. I'll Tell You, In Reality A Few Of Us Had As Many Girls As Warren.

This Is Not A Movie About Smelling The Urine! It's Another Kind Of Movie." Volker Schlöndorff Got Billy Wilder To Agree To These Conversations - You Can Buy It - Because Volker Spoke German At Times. And He Said To Billy Wilder: "what Is In Your Mind?" And He Said: "if You're Going To Try To Tell The Truth To The Audience, You'd Better Be Funny Or They'll Kill You." And I Haven't Forgotten That.

I Stopped Working A Few Years Ago Because I Just Lost A Spark That I'd Had Before. I Thought I'd Just Try Writing, And Maybe Start Directing, But I Did It Very Quietly.

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I Love Working, I'd Be Dead If I Hadn't Found Myself As An Actor I Didn't Have To Be Successful.

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If You Have This Enormous Talent, It's Got You By The Balls, It's A Demon. You Can't Be A Family Man And A Husband And A Caring Person And Be That Animal. Dickens Wasn't That Nice A Guy.

Well First Of All, It's Hard To Shoot A Movie And Break For A Long Time And Then Come Back And Do, In A Sense, One Of The Biggest Scenes That Each Character Had.

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The Academy Awards Are Obscene, Dirty . . . No Better Than A Beauty Contest.

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But I Would Reinvent Myself If I Could. As A Sexy Leading Man! We All Would Like That, But I Don't Know How To.

People Like Johnny Depp Are An Exception. He Is The Current Model Of What An Actor Should Be. His Body Of Work Speaks Volumes. He Was So Under-rated For So Long, But He Will Have Longevity - And It Is Such A Gratifying Thrill To See He Is Finally Getting The Recognition He Deserves.

The Truth Is, I've Made About 30 Movies In 30 Years, And I've Been Criticized For 30 Years For Not Making More Movies.

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We All Believe What We Read. I Read How Tom Cruise And I Were Two Big Egos Holding Up Shooting. I Know That Isn't True - But If I Wasn't Making A Movie With Him And I Just Picked Up The Paper, I'd Believe It. That's Interesting, Isn't It?

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I Did Some Writing And Bought A Book, And Have Been Working On That As A Film To Act And Direct In.

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I Came In On This Movie After There Had Been A Director And I Came In After Tom Courtenay Had Talked To Ron Harwood About Making A Movie. So, You Know Tom And Albert Finney Had Been Friends Since The Beginning Of Their Career As They Became Stars Around The Same Time - Tom Always Reminds Me That Albert Was First With Saturday Night And Sunday Morning And Then Tom With The Long Distance Runner.

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