HBO host John Oliver hammered Dustin Hoffman about the sexual allegations that were against him. Oliver interviewed Hoffman as part of a panel in December celebrating the 20th anniversary of Barry Levinson’s ‘Wag the Dog.’
John Oliver is still surprised that Dustin Hoffman didn’t know what was coming. The HBO host thought the topic of the movie itself made the question relevant. To know more about why Oliver slammed Hoffman in an interview, scroll down.
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Why Did John Oliver Slam Dustin Hoffman In The Interview?
Hoffman has been accused of sexual harassment by television producer and writer Wendy Riss Gatsiounis (“Reign,” “Genius”) and Anna Graham Hunter. Anna alleged that Hoffman groped her and made inappropriate comments to her when she was a 17-year-old intern on the set of the 1985 TV movie ‘Death Of A Salesman’.
“It just felt it would have been weird not to bring it up because it was ‘Wag the Dog,’” Oliver told reporters on Monday at a press event to help kick off Season 5 of his late-night series ‘Last Week Tonight.’ “It’s a great story about burying sexual harassment and the power that comes with that. Yeah. So.”
“It felt like he should have been aware that he was going to have to answer this the next time he wants to do anything and then,” Oliver said. “If he honestly thought I wasn’t going to bring it up that I don’t know how little he would have to think of me to think that I wouldn’t bring that up. That’s pretty insulting.”
Oliver added that the only reason he pressed Hoffman and that the conversation kept going was “that his responses were pretty bad. I wanted to try and get him to a point of self-reflection, to try and get something out of the conversation at all. But that didn’t happen. I don’t think there was anything particularly remarkable about what I was asking him.”
How Did Oliver Slam Hoffman?
“This is something we’re going to have to talk about because…it’s hanging in the air,” Oliver said to Hoffman during the event. The comedian said he was actually surprised that Hoffman even attended the panel since he had avoided interviews at another event the previous week after the allegations had emerged.
Oliver admonished Hoffman for his previous hedging apologies, adding that there was no reason for accusers to lie, as Hoffman pushed back angrily, saying that his conduct was normal on-set behavior and that Oliver shouldn’t believe everything he reads.
Around halfway through the hourlong panel—which also featured star Robert De Niro, producer Jane Rosenthal, and director Barry Levinson—Oliver brought up the “elephant in the room,” asking Hoffman about the allegations. Hoffman claimed he did not remember Graham Hunter. He also claimed, he did not grope anyone, and that his agent and PR people had told him it was best to avoid getting into a lengthy dispute by simply apologizing.
Hoffman was keen to point out that his apology was not an admission of guilt and that it was framed as a conditional, saying: “if I did anything that was out of sorts or embarrassed her, I apologize.” Later in the panel, the pair turned to the allegations by Katharine Ross that Hoffman groped her on the set of ‘The Graduate’.
An increasingly angry Hoffman pointed to his role in Tootsie, in which he dressed as a woman, as evidence of his respect for women. He accused Oliver of failing to keep an open mind. The audience seemed firmly on Oliver’s side, with rounds of applause following his lines of questioning and whispered “yes” from women in the crowd.
