Dustin Hoffman Psychiatric Institute, affiliated with Columbia University, when he was 21. "It was a great experience for me," he said. "All my life I had wanted to get inside a prison or a mental hospital. . . . I wanted to get inside where behavior, human behavior, was so exposed. All the things the rest of us were feeling and stopping up were coming out of these people." He used that experience to help him develop the character of Raymond Babbitt, a high-functioning autistic savant, yet a person who critic David Denby described as "a strangely shuttered genius." Hoffman created certain
Dustin Hoffman "Dick Tracy" (1990) (where his "Ishtar" co-star Beatty plays the titular character), "Hero" (1992) and "Billy Bathgate" (1991) co-starring with Nicole Kidman (who was nominated for a Golden Globe). Hoffman also played the title role of Captain Hook in Steven Spielberg's "Hook" (also 1991), earning a Golden Globe nomination, and the narrator in Dr. Seuss Video Classics: "Horton Hears a Who!" (also 1992); in "Hook", Hoffman's costume was so heavy that he had to wear an air-conditioned suit under it. Hoffman played the lead role in "Outbreak" (1995), alongside Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Donald