Dustin Hoffman is one of the most incredibly well-known and talented actors in Hollywood. He has starred in many massively successful projects like Rain Man, The Graduate, Tootsie, and Meet the Fockers, making a name for himself through his dedication to going above and beyond for the roles he takes up. He has been awarded for this skill time and time again throughout his career, including being nominated for an Academy Award seven times and winning the same twice, once for his work in the Meryl Streep legal drama, Kramer vs. Kramer, and then for the 1988 comedy-drama film, Rain Man.
It is quite a common phenomenon in the film industry for established and successful actors like Hoffman, to have a hand in discovering some of the biggest names in cinema. This is what happened to Jonah Hill, best known for his work in projects like 21 Jump Street, Superbad, and The Wolf Of Wall Street, who was discovered by the Kramer vs. Kramer.
Dustin Hoffman Discovered Jonah Hill
During an interview with The Guardian, Jonah Hill talked about his professional life and how he got to where he is now. He touched on the subject of how he got interested in becoming part of the film industry, revealing that he had always been interested in cinema, however, he was more interested in the filmmaking aspect of it rather than featuring in them, like he is now. Elaborating on this, he mentioned that his biggest dream growing up was working as a writer on the beloved satirical sitcom, The Simpsons. Though he agreed that this dream was quite odd for a child to have, he looked forward it to being fulfilled someday.
“I always wanted to be a film-maker when I was younger, not an actor. I was an eight-year-old who dreamed of being a writer on The Simpsons, which was a weird dream to have. But I started taking acting classes as a way to learn how to direct actors and I sort of fell in love with it. I started writing and acting in these little plays and then I was discovered by Dustin Hoffman. He got me my first audition for a film he was in, called I Heart Huckabees.”
To do this, he started to take classes that focused on teaching how to direct and work with actors. These made him fall in love with this profession even more. Using the knowledge that he had gotten from these, Hill started to create writing small-scale plays that he would execute and act in himself. Surprisingly, the actor revealed that it was around this time, that he met Dustin Hoffman, who helped him get his first job in the 2004 film, I Heart Huckabees.
Dustin Hoffman Liked Jonah Hill’s Pranks
Jonah Hill then went on to tell The Guardian about how he was discovered by Dustin Hoffman and eventually got his big break. The actor revealed that when he was around 17 years old, he had the tendency to prank call hotels pretending to be the assistant of a celebrity. He would then ask them for some ridiculous requests and things that this ‘celebrity’ could bring into the hotel. He would also record these conversations as a way to laugh at them later.
“I was 17 or 18 and I made this crank call CD that he really liked. I would call up hotels and pretend to be the assistant of a celebrity, asking what kind of weird things I could bring into the hotel. Once, during Oscar season, I asked about bringing in an aquatic tank for a pet seal, and they started figuring out all the different valves we’d need, the water pressure, and stuff. Dustin thought it was so funny he made me do crank calls live for his family.”
A particularly absurd one, the Hill recorded around the Oscars, when a lot of celebrities were coming to hotels, was heard by Hoffman. He revealed that the Oscar-winning actor loved this so much that he asked Hill to do these calls, live, in front of his family. It was after this that the actor got his first acting job, being given a small role in Hoffman’s film, I Heart Huckabees.
Source: The Guardian
