Dustin Hoffman Recalls Being Held at Gunpoint in Bed and Early Gritty NYC Days Living with Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman

Dustin Hoffman is opening up about his younger years with the release of his memoir, “Look at Me.”

The actor, who broke into Hollywood with his role in “The Graduate,” appeared on the Nov. 9 episode of the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast and revealed that he had once been held at gunpoint by a man whose wife he was having an affair with during his “youth youth.”

“I was having an affair with a married woman,” Hoffman, 89, admitted. “She thought that once her husband went to asleep, that he stayed asleep.”

Explaining that he had been invited to the woman’s home when her husband had presumably gone to bed, when suddenly it had become clear that the man was well aware of what was going on.

“There we are, having a festival of sorts, and he walked in with a gun,” the “Rain Man” actor shared. “He pointed it at me and he said, I remember what he said, ‘Get out, get out.’”

Dustin Hoffman appeared on Conan O'Brien's podcast, sharing stories from his younger years, including being held at gunpoint and living in New York City with Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. (Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend/YouTube)

The actor has released a memoir, "Look at Me," in which he writes about his decades-long career. (Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images)

“When you have a gun pointed at you,” he explained, “You realize how, any second, any second he’s going to pull that trigger. His finger is on the trigger and you think any second he’s going to. You realize, ‘That’s it, I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die, the next second, the next second, the next second.”

The actor recalled that in that moment, he came to the realization that “you will do anything to avoid getting killed.”

At another point in the interview, O’Brien asked the Los Angeles native to detail his move to New York. Hoffman relocated across the country in 1958 at 21, hoping to pursue a career in acting.

As O’Brien put it, Hoffman worked “a lot of absurd odd jobs” at this point in his life, including a role at Macy’s, where he was tasked with selling toys—like foosball and table hockey—to adults.

As an aspiring actor, Hoffman put his own spin on the job, and decided to embody a character of his own making; a retired, injured French hockey player.

“Gene Hackman was right there at adult games, also,” Hoffman said, noting that the fellow actor was his coworker at the time. Decades later, the pair would go on to work together again, starring in the 2003 film, “Runaway Jury.”

Hackman and Hoffman weren’t just coincidental coworkers. They lived together, too.

“You go home to your roommates, and they are Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. The three of you, I’m picturing a bunk bed with three levels. And you guys are snoring in unison like ‘The Three Stooges.’ That’s what I’m picturing,” joked O’Brien.

Hoffman said that the three men, who eventually each became very famous actors, “didn’t live together quite like that.”

Hoffman detailed his experience living with Duvall in New York City, in an apartment that cost $80 a month to rent. (Getty Images for BAFTA LA)

Prior to that, Hoffman lived with Hackman and his first wife, Faye Maltese, sleeping on their kitchen floor. (NBAE via Getty Images)

Although he seems to look back on the experience with a sense of humor now, his memoir tells a different story. In an excerpt from the book, Hoffman wrote that he “was so frightened of New York.”

“I didn’t want to go outside. I’d been excited to get there, but once I arrived it scared the hell out of me,” he said. “All these thousands of people who knew what they were doing, whereas I was completely in the dark. It was intimidating.”

At one point, Hoffman lived with Hackman and his first wife, Faye Maltese, in “a little apartment on the East Side.”

“I slept on the kitchen floor next to their refrigerator, which shook and made a lot of noise, like it was having a heart attack once or twice a night,” Hoffman recalled.

Hoffman had originally only planned to stay with Hackman and his wife for a few days, but the arrangement lasted three weeks before “the Hackmans ran out of patience and told me it was time to move on.”

Hackman advised Hoffman to, “go up Riverside Drive and knock on the doors and ask to speak to the superintendent,” to find a new place to live. The actor recalled starting at 60th Street and Central Park West, and knocking on “every door of every building all the way to the Hudson River and back again” until he eventually found a place on 109th street.

He rented a top-floor apartment in a building in Spanish Harlem for $80 a month, and knew he’d “need roommates to afford it,” which is where Duvall came in.

“We had a lot of rowdy nights in that apartment: pizza, unemployed actors, candles in chianti bottles,” Hackman wrote. “I would play the piano. Duvall would sing country music songs. If someone had pointed at Bob and Gene and me at one of our parties and said, ‘Those three are going to be movie stars,” everyone in the apartment would have laughed.”

Even after Hoffman got his first big break, it was a while before he’d find his footing financially. During the podcast interview, he said he was paid $3,000 for his role in "The Graduate," which was released in 1967. But after the film’s premiere, he still needed more funds.

“You didn’t have any money, and so you went back to the unemployment office and someone at Life magazine took a photo of you,” O’Brien said. “The most famous face in America at the time, waiting in the unemployment line to get a check.”

Hoffman confirmed that the story was true, adding that the check was for about $50.

“$55, I think was the most you could get,” he continued, quipping that at that time, people “could live on” about “$200 a month.”