Dustin Hoffman Wanted to Be James Bond?! Hollywood’s Ultimate Chameleon Speaks | Parkinson

You believe it's 30 years since we last met. Were you born in 1900? Yeah, I'm actually 39. I know I don't look it, but I am. So you were nine years old when... Yeah, when you two first met. I remember it well, actually. You watched the show? I did. Before we talk about your new movie, let's... I mean, when you look at your career, it's an extraordinary range of roles that you've played. I mean, nobody's played a greater range of roles than you. Is there anything that's eluded you? Any part that you wanted that you've not yet played? James Bond. James Bond? Why James Bond? Because I don't think he's ever been played correctly. What's missing? Well, when you get a part and you're an actor, you look at the frame of the... You know, the part is defined and you're supposed to play what it says it is. And no one's ever played him for what he is. Well, how would you play him? He's an assassin. He'll kill anybody that he's told to kill. He doesn't care who it is. He'll screw any girl jumping off the curb. He's a womanizer. He doesn't really like women, you know? He bangs them once and that's it. That's like my brother. And if I got the part, I'd want to meet your brother. And observe him. Right, let's talk about your new movie, Strangely Fiction. You play a professor in this. There's an interesting premise. Will Ferrell plays a guy who's living a life, but he keeps hearing this is life being told by a woman who's writing a mystery story. And the inevitable consequence of this story as it goes through his head, he knows it's going to end in his death. So he goes to you to try and find out what the hell is happening and what he can do about it. Is that a fair assessment of the situation? I'm not sure. It's going to be a working basis, but we're looking at a clip. All right, all right, all right. Are you the king of anything? Like what? Anything. King of the lanes at the local bowling alley. King of the lanes? King of the lanes. King of the trolls. King of the trolls? Yes. A clandestine land found underneath your floorboards. No. Huh? No. It's ridiculous. Agreed. Let's start with ridiculous and move backwards. The debate at the center of the film, the sort of basis of the film, is life a comedy or a tragedy? Yes. That's basically it. And what's your conclusion? Me, personally, I think life is a serious comedy. Serious comedy? Yes. I mean, the film deals on a level that we do have, we're living two lives. In other words, everyone has a writer inside them. We live one life from day to day and then there's a voice inside of us, each of us, that is saying, why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? And we don't. At a later point, we regret that other person that was telling us, why didn't you live your own life? And I think it astounds all of us that we don't live more our own life. So you don't listen to that voice at all? No, totally. Well, I mean, he's listening to that voice. He can't have too many regrets. There's not too many things that you've not done. Well, live your own life and other people's if you can help it. But you've been cautious about that, haven't you? About listening to that voice, that other voice, saying, why don't you do that? Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? Well, me personally, I find it hard to believe people who said, you know, I don't regret anything I've ever done and if I had life to live over, I wouldn't change anything. I would change about 95%. I really think it's, you know, they say life isn't a dress rehearsal. It is. That's the problem. And I wish I could go back. I just, give me my 20s back. Give me my 30s back. Knowing what I know now, I think I could live it more fully. Would you fundamentally change? Would you fundamentally change the films you made? Oh, I'd take a lot of films that I'd turn down, yeah. Would you? Yeah. And what about the films that you had success with? What do you do with them? Would you like to re-edit your life to that extent? Yeah. I mean, I don't know what it's like for Mr. Gallagher, but I know, I mean, when you, you know, you do your work, you put out your albums and then at a later point, you'll hear it. Yeah. Well, with me, and I know actors like me, let's say we make films and we see it when it opens and if it's funny, maybe you'll go back while it's playing and stand on the back and hear the laughs hit. It's a nice feeling. But then years pass and you're watching television and you're surfing along and there's one of your movies. And I personally, I'll stay there and I'll watch. I'll say, and you immediately, I immediately remember where I was, you know, and what was going on in my life at that time. And if it was a hard day or not. And it's fun to recall that. But then as I'm watching the scene, I'm saying, I hit that moment where I said, I could have done that better. And at that moment, I go on. I'm just wondering, is it true with you? Obviously not being an actor, I would imagine it's different. Because if I'm kind of at a party or something, I can pick up the guitar and play one of my songs to whoever happens to be there. You can't just get up and act out one of your best scenes. Do you know what I mean? So the gratification that you get, I don't know, can you? The gratification that you get off music, it self-generates itself because you can do it over and over and over and over again. Whereas when you do a film, it's committed to celluloid and then it's finished. And that's it. But does it make you feel bad that when you hear your thing on the record and then you say, geez, I would have done it differently? Well, when I listen to my music, I listen to it completely differently. I listen to every single instrument and know that, that could have been better, that could have been better. You do the same thing. But then we get to kind of perform it live, night after night. And the bits that you think you could have done better, you get to put right when you do it live, kind of thing. When you look at a film like, say, Tootsie, where you played a woman, I mean, where does that rate in your retrospective, if you like? When you look at that, do you think, oh God, I wish I'd not done that at all? No, I like that. It's a wonderful film. Thank you, thank you. I like it. I mean, there's scenes that were written that were not shot because the director thought it was too racy or whatever. I wish he had shot them. There were other scenes that we did shoot that are not in the film. Of course, that exists. What was it like, though, becoming a woman? Well, I like what I learned. And I did learn stuff that I never... And that's what you like when you do something. I think it's whether you're composing, whatever. There's something that comes into your consciousness that wasn't there before. And what I learned, because what made us want to write the thing in the first place was not what it's like to be a woman, but it's how would I have been different if I had been born a woman, my own personality. And, well, if I would have looked like I look as a man, it would have been very painful. So I asked them when we were working on the makeup, you know, make me look real. I don't want to do it unless I can walk down the street and people don't turn around and say, who's that guy in drag? I want it to be convincing. And then they, after months and months, they said, all right, you look convincing. I said, now make me beautiful. And they said, well, that's as good as it's gonna get. And that was a moment because at that moment, I realized if I had met myself at a party, I wouldn't have gone near. And that was painful because I thought I was an interesting woman. And I realized I had missed out on a lot of interesting women because I'd grown up with a kind of, you know, stereotypical. A stereotype, that's right. So you made the judgment on how people looked as we all do in any way, of course. And then I couldn't get the voice right as much as I tried. And one woman who was a speech therapist at a university in Los Angeles said a breakthrough thing to me. And she said, you know, it is a male dominant, I mean, this is back in 82. So it's hopefully less so now, but it's a male dominated society. So when men say things, they tend to, and I'll tell you what you have to do. And it ends there, but down. And he says, women, no matter what they're saying, they tend to ask permission to have an opinion. Well, what do you think about this? Well, you know, so everything ends up, well, would it be all right if I, you know, and I thought, wow. And once I started doing that, it took me closer because it was, you know, they're all, you know, at that time, they were asking for entrance, you know. It's interesting, isn't it? Because you're right about that. Yes, no, yes. I mean, but women are, I mean, that's what women do in the house. They keep the peace, not by stomping and swearing, but by very cleverly manipulating, saying, what do you think about this? I mean, they're, that's how they do it. That's how my wife does it. Pure evil. I mean, they're very clever, you see. We're stupid. We're full of testosterone, bang on like that, and it doesn't work. See, we're all up front about it. Those lot are just Machiavellian, to say the least, aren't they? The puppet masters, I call them. The puppet masters. Pulling all the strings. How long have you been married? 47, eight years. Wow. I've been married 26. We've known each other for 30 years. And when I meet younger people, sometimes they'll ask me, they're getting married or whatever, they say, what's it like to, you know, do you have any advice for me? And I don't like to give advice, but I do give advice on marriage, because I do think I found out something that was very, very important. I think on a fundamental level, if a relationship between a man and woman is going to last, I think the only way it can last is on a fundamental level, I think the man has to be scared shitless. That's absolutely true. They're smarter and they're, as he says, I mean, they just, you cannot win an argument. And it's best not to spend yourself trying. That's right. I spent a great amount of my time petrified. And we're working it out now. Maybe when we've done 50-odd years, we'll come to some conclusion. That's wonderful. Speaking of which, so the last time that we talked, all those years ago, you said that maybe toward, as you got older, and you're coming up for your 70th birthday. So we can now ask you this question. Well done. Yeah, you look great. Well done. Fantastic. You said you'd like to do a film about two old people in love. Yeah. So are you going to further that plan? It's a nice idea. Well, you'll have to ask me in 30 years. I did read in the paper though, and it warms my heart, is in New York, there was a congressman they said his career was ruined because his father was caught having sex with a woman in a parked car. And his father was 88. And I said, get him, go, go, get him. God bless you. I mean, yes, that's the guy I want to make a movie about. That's the start of the film, all right. Well, all the best with Strangers in Fiction. And great to have seen you again. And hopefully it won't be another 30 years because by God, we'll be all sods and all. You look very, very well, sir. Dustin Hoffman, thank you very much indeed.