Dustin Hoffman his seventh Academy Award nomination for his performance in "Wag The Dog" (1997), in a role that allowed Hoffman the chance to work with both Robert De Niro and Denis Leary. The movie is a black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson, who also directed Hoffman in "Rain Man" in 1988. The story takes place a few days before a presidential election, where a Washington, D.C. spin doctor (De Niro) distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer (Hoffman) to construct a fake war with Albania. Hoffman, as a caricature of real life
Dustin Hoffman title role of the musical "Jimmy Shine". Hoffman won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance. He was then offered the lead in "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), which he accepted partly to prove many critics were wrong about his acting range and the variety of characters he could portray. As author and critic Peter Biskind explains, "it was the very contrast between his preppy character in "The Graduate", and Ratso Rizzo" that appealed to Hoffman. "I had become troubled," recalls Hoffman, "by the reviews that I read of "The Graduate," that I was not a character actor, which I like to