Meryl Streep’s terrible first meeting with Dustin Hoffman: “What an obnoxious pig, I thought”
Today, Meryl Streep is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, known for her roles in movies ranging from Sophie’s Choice to Mamma Mia. She has appeared in countless films over the years, becoming an icon of American cinema, seemingly possessing the ability to shapeshift into an eclectic array of characters.
Streep began her career in the 1970s with various theatre performances, making her way to Broadway with roles in productions such as Happy End and A Memory of Two Mondays. Then, she graduated to the big screen in 1976 with a small role in Julia, starring Jane Fonda.
At the time, Fonda was a big name in Hollywood, and she ended up in the running to play the leading female role in Kramer vs Kramer, directed by Robert Benton. However, it was relative newcomer Streep who beat a bunch of established stars to the post and landed the role of Joanna.
Starring opposite Dustin Hoffman, who had already been nominated for three ‘Best Actor’ Academy Awards, Streep demonstrated her acting prowess, and both leading actors nabbed Oscar wins for their stunning performances. In Kramer vs Kramer, they portray a feuding couple going through a divorce, with their young son, played by Justin Henry (who also earned a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nomination), at the centre of the drama.
However, this was not the first time that Streep and Hoffman had crossed paths. The pair had met while Hoffman was directing a theatre play, All Over Town, several years before, although what actually happened during their first meeting has been documented in varying forms over the years. In a 1979 interview with Time, Streep revealed, “He came up to me and said, ‘I’m Dustin—burp—Hoffman,’ and he put his hand on my breast. What an obnoxious pig, I thought.”
However, since then, a representative of Streep’s has explained to E! News that Streep’s initial account was not “an accurate rendering of that meeting” and “There was an offense and it is something for which Dustin apologized. And Meryl accepted that.”
Still, Streep continued to be unimpressed by Hoffman’s behaviour when they began working with each other on Kramer vs Kramer. Hoffman took his method-acting approach too far, with Streep on the receiving end. Talking to the New York Times, Streep revealed, “This is tricky because when you’re an actor, you’re in a scene, you have to feel free. I’m sure that I have inadvertently hurt people in physical scenes. But there’s a certain amount of forgiveness in that. But this was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping.”
