Dustin Hoffman describes why he loves the film: Next came director Barry Levinson's "Rain Man" (1988), where Hoffman starred as an autistic savant, opposite Tom Cruise. Levinson, Hoffman and Cruise worked for two years on the film, and Hoffman's performance gained him his second Academy Award. Behind Hoffman's motivation for doing the film, he has said, "Deep inside, "Rain Man" is about how autistic we all are." In preparation for the part, Hoffman spent two years befriending autistic people, which included taking them bowling and to fast food restaurants. "It fed my obsession," he has stated. Hoffman worked at the New York
Dustin Hoffman interview, he said that all of his children from his second marriage had bar or bat mitzvahs and that he is a more observant Jew now than when he was younger; he has also lamented that he is not fluent in Hebrew. A political liberal, Hoffman has long supported the Democratic Party and Ralph Nader. In 1997 he was one of a number of Hollywood stars and executives to sign an open letter to then–German chancellor Helmut Kohl protesting the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, which was published as a newspaper advertisement in the "International Herald Tribune". In 2009 he