Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My castaway this week is Dustin Hoffman. In spite of his Aunt Pearl telling him he wasn't good looking enough to be an actor,

he has for 45 years been crafting landmark movie performances.

He is that rare and apparently contradictory thing, a character actor and a superstar.

The graduate, midnight cowboy, Lenny, all the president's men,

marathon man, Kramer versus Kramer, Tutsi, Rain Man, WAG The Dog, Last Chance Harvey.

The years pass and the hits keep coming.

These just a handful of the movies that contribute to an unparalleled body of work.

He is the only actor in history to have top billing in three films that won Best Picture Oscars.

Now in his mid-70s, his directorial debut is the movie Quartet

about love, regrets, aging and creativity as funny as it is poignant.

He says lots of smart, quotable aposite things.

Among them, I'm always fighting to break through.

I'm trying to show you the part of me that wants to love, wants to kill, that wants to find

my way out that feels there is no way out.

So 45 years of making movies then Dustin Hoffman. For you this is the first time behind the camera.

What took you so long?

I don't think 35, 40 years is that long to make this decision.

If you had my demons, I actually directed actors

when I started studying acting.

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