Matthew Rhys remembered feeling crushed after Dustin Hoffman attended one of his performances of The Graduate but never came backstage.
Rhys, then 26, played the role Hoffman made famous in the 1967 film during the 2000 West End production at London’s Gielgud Theatre. Years later, he admitted that Hoffman’s quiet exit triggered his insecurities as a young actor.
Matthew Rhys recalls Dustin Hoffman’s backstage snub after Rhys played his iconic role in ‘The Graduate’
Rhys discussed the encounter on the Why Are You More Successful Than Me? podcast and said Hoffman’s decision not to visit backstage bothered him “wildly.”
At the time, Rhys had learned from costar Kathleen Turner that famous actors often stopped backstage after performances, even when they did not personally know the cast.
Turner once told him that Tom Hanks had attended and invited Rhys to join her for a drink afterward.
“She goes, ‘No. This is what they do. They just come backstage,’” Rhys recalled.
That expectation shaped how he reacted when Hoffman came to see The Graduate.
“At the end, Dustin Hoffman came. We’re like, ‘Oh my God, he’s going to come, he’ll come backstage!’ And he never came,” Rhys said.
Rather than assume Hoffman simply had other plans, Rhys immediately worried that the actor disliked his performance.
“I just thought he must have sat there going, ‘Well, he was s—.’ What am I going to say to him?” Rhys admitted.
He acknowledged that Hoffman may have simply needed to leave, but said his own insecurity took over.
“There’s something about my performance he does not like that has warranted him not coming back,” Rhys remembered thinking.
As per PEOPLE, Meryl Streep later said Hoffman slapped her while filming Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979 without warning her first.
“He just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping,” Streep said.
Despite the awkward encounter, The Graduate became an important early step in Rhys’ career.
The production paired him with Turner and helped lead to more acting work soon afterward.
