Hoffman initially hoped to become a classical pianist, having studied piano during much of his youth and in college. While at Santa Monica College, he also took an acting class, which he assumed would be easy, and "caught the acting bug." He recalls: "I just was not gifted in music. I did not have an ear." Hoffman has stated that Pulitzer Prize winning novelist William Saroyan inspired him to pursue his dream of acting. Now an aspiring actor, he spent the next ten years doing odd jobs, being unemployed, and struggling to get any available acting roles, a lifestyle he was later to portray in the film "Tootsie". Hoffman composed a song called "Shooting the Breeze", and Bette Midler wrote the words.