He’s in ‘Luck’: Dustin Hoffman tries TV

By Scott Timberg

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES

Dustin Hoffman is as surprised as anyone to see himself — after five decades on the stage and big screen — showing up on television. When he mentioned his interest in the show “Luck,” the David Milch-Michael Mann horse-racing series on HBO, his friends and colleagues were not optimistic.

“People said, ‘Oh, no, you’re into television!’” he recalls, sitting in a hotel suite with the show’s creators during a recent press tour. “’It causes divorce; it maims people physically; you knock out so many pages a day. ...’”

Part of what drew him to a television part was the chance to act in a program that — unlike a film — could take every role seriously. Although the show, which was renewed for a second season after its first episode aired in January, received its share of tough reviews, nearly all of them praised the acting and rich array of characters. Even in the best films, Hoffman says, many characters have only two dimensions.

When Hoffman, now 74, started out as an actor in the ’50s, he had no way of knowing how sophisticated television would eventually get. Early on, though, Hoffman would have jumped at a steady television role — just about any television role. “I would have taken ‘General Hospital’ for 20 years!” he shouts. “Raise a family; stay in one town. ...”

Hoffman has played some of the most memorable and distinctive characters in American cinema: a disillusioned college graduate, a weasely con man, a desperate actor forced to impersonate a woman, a crusading journalist helping to bring down a crooked president. Hoffman became identified with a certain kind of neurotic or wounded protagonist that especially suited the maverick cinema of the late 1960s and ’70s.

As roles go, Ace Bernstein is a departure for him, Hoffman says: Instead of a character who responds to what’s handed him, this enigmatic, internal businessman is working what you could call a very long con. Though the series is full of subplots, its main action involves Bernstein breaking into the track as a way to seek revenge on old underworld associates. “I see him as the architect,” Mann says. “The guy with the plan.”

As Bernstein, Hoffman is able to do a lot with a very understated character: He male-bonds with sidekick Gus (Dennis Farina), plays sympathetic philanthropist to a woman running a charity (Joan Allen), acts the tough guy with former colleagues, and responds with flashes of open-heartedness.