Dustin Hoffman often took method acting to incredible extremes. In order to appear more tired for a scene in Marathon Man, he stayed awake -- for several days.

Laurence Olivier (Hofmann's co-star in the film) later offered him a word of advice: "You should try acting, my boy," he said. "It's much easier."

[Hofmann's perfectionist tendencies often caused tension on the set. Producer David Puttnam once called him "a malevolent American pest" and director Sydney Pollack once said of his Tootsie Oscar: "I'd give it up, if I could have back the nine months of my life I spent with Dustin Hoffman making it."]

[Hoffman was named after his mother's favourite cowboy hero. "Tootsie," however, was his childhood nickname.]