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 Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and director. Hoffman is best known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is the recipient of various accolades including two Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards (including the Cecil B. DeMille Award), four BAFTAs, three Drama Desk Awards, two Emmy Awards, and a Genie Award. Hoffman received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999 and the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 2012. Hoffman first drew critical praise for starring in the play, "Eh?", for which he won a Theatre World Award and