36 AMERICANWAY
JANUARY 1 2009
one of the most tender scenes inDustinHoffman’s newmovie,
Last ChanceHarvey,
comes aboutmidway through the film’s 99min-
utes.Hischaracter,Harvey, sitsdownatapiano inanemptyhotelball-
roomand,without sayingaword, begins toplaya song that is complex
yet incredibly earnest. His love interest, played by Emma Thompson,
hears themusic and quietly sidles up beside him on the piano bench.
Inan instant it’s clear:He’s gotten thegirl.
Yes, at age71,Hoffman is still as capableof getting thegirl ashewas
when he unwittingly wooedMrs. Robinsonmore than 40 years ago.
ButwhenHoffman composed themusic that seals thedeal forHarvey,
the circumstanceswerequite theopposite.
“That was my first heartbreak,” Hoff-
man says of the relationship that inspired
themelody.Hewas just 24 at the time, but
the details of the breakup are still easy for
him to remember. Feeling a bit under the
weather on this sunny day in Brentwood,
California, he closes his eyes, tears apart a
croissant, and recalls the story.
“She was an actress; we lived together,”
he says. “Wewere doing summer stock,my
first summer stock, in Fishkill, New York.
We met in acting class, and the acting
teacher— itwas part of his theater. Andhe
was awonderful acting teacher, but I came
down after a show one night— Iwas play-
ingAnne Frank’s boyfriend in
TheDiary of
AnneFrank
—andIcamedownstairs to the
basement, a green-room kind of thing, and
caught
[
my teacher andmy girlfriend
],
uh,
necking. I was stunningly shocked. They
had this terrible, clunky piano
there, and I would play around
on it. And suddenly, thismusic
cameout.”
Though the memory seems
only days old in his mind, it’s
taken almost five decades for
that tune to find its way to the
big screen. In that time, Hoff-
man has appeared in dozens of
feature films and been nomi-
nated for a Tony and seven
AcademyAwards, of whichhe’s
won two, for
Kramer vs. Kram-
er
and
RainMan
.He’salsowon
anEmmy for
Death of aSalesman
. Despite
his body of work, however, it’s
Last Chance
Harvey
, which he describes as “a private
conversation,” that he calls one of the best
experienceshe’s everhad.
This conversation — largely between
Hoffman’s character, Harvey, and Thomp-
son’sKate— takesplace inLondon.Harvey
has traveled there from New York to at-
tend his estranged daughter’s wedding. As
the film plays out, it’s clear to the audience
that this isn’t the typical big-screen fare;
the characters are believably intimate and
unexpectedly revealing. And if the inter-
actions — the words, the phrases, and the
subtlest of expressions — feel exceedingly
real, it’s for good reason. Much of the film
was improvised or loosely scripted on set
by Hoffman, Thompson, and director Joel
Hopkins. The film is an emotional adagio
that relies entirely on the chemistry be-
tween Hoffman and Thompson. Though
the pair’s on-screen rapport seems broken
in and well worn, they had worked to-
gether only once before, sharing a handful
of scenes in 2006’s
Stranger than Fiction
,
which they filmed in Chicago. It was there
that their incipient ideas for
Last Chance
Harvey
took shape.
“I sat down with Emma in Chicago and
said, ‘Since we have a director who is also
thewriter, let’sdo
[
thefilm
]
under the rules
of improvising so that we know the scene
and if we wanted to part from it or jump
around, if our impulse takes us somewhere
else, we can do that,’” Hoffman says, ex-
plaining that much of
Tootsie
,
RainMan
,
and
Kramer vs. Kramer
were shot thatway
as well. “
[
In
Kramer vs. Kramer
,
]
Meryl
Streep, I remember, asked the director if
she couldwriteher own stuffwhen shewas
on thestand,whenshehasabigmonologue
about what it means to be a mother. She
drew frombeingamotherherself.Thatwas
her talking.”
Having seen this technique work sowell
in thepast,Hoffmanwasconfident itwould
similarly work with Thompson. So con-
fident, in fact, that not only were the two
actors comfortable with being unsure of
whereeach scenewouldgo, theydidn’tplan
out the film’s conclusion either. “We didn’t
knowwhere the filmwould lead,”Hoffman
says, shaking his head and brushing crois-
sant crumbs from a comfortably rumpled
button-down shirt.
EmmaThompson and
DustinHoffman in
Last
ChanceHarvey
