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
Voyager (film) of the war. The main character shows some resemblance to Frisch, a frustrated architect turned author. German director Volker Schlöndorff, who already directed an Oscar-winning film, "The Tin Drum" (1979), moved to New York in the mid-1980s to make a television adaptation of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" with Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman. By 1987, with his career stalled and his marriage breaking up, the 47-year-old Schlöndorff could perhaps identify with the novel's main character, Walter Faber, and he decided to make a film based on the novel. After acquiring the film rights, Schlöndorff turned to Rudy Wurlitzer,