In 1966 director Mike Nichols auditioned Hoffman for a lead role in the Broadway musical "The Apple Tree" but rejected him because he could not sing well enough and gave Alan Alda the part. But Nichols was so impressed with Hoffman's overall audition he cast him as the male lead in the movie "The Graduate" (1967). Hoffman played the character of Benjamin Braddock, a recent college graduate who has an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father's law partner. This was Hoffman's first major role, and he received an Academy Award nomination for it but lost to Rod Steiger for "In the Heat of the Night".