Dustin Hoffman ‘Lost His Sh—’ on Alex Borstein When She Said ‘Tootsie’ Was An Inspiration to All Ugly Women

Neither Dustin Hoffman nor his Tootsie character Michael Dorsey have a spotless record when it comes to women, but the former actor will be damned if he lets Alex Borstein believe that the moral of the movie is that she’s ugly.

Back at the dawn of the MeToo movement in late 2017, seven different women hit Hoffman with sexual misconduct accusations, telling their abusive stories of Hoffman that ranged from harassment to assault. Hoffman would soon release an apology for the lightest of the allegations, and the accusations ultimately amounted to a brief dip in reputation for the actor, whose similarly controversial contemporaries Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Liam Neeson publicly jumped to his defense, claiming Hoffman to be more multifaceted than outright monstrous.

And, in fairness to the two-time Academy Award winner, there was at least one woman with aspirations in the entertainment industry whom he uplifted as opposed to degraded. At Entertainment Weekly’s Bold School panel at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, MADtv, Family Guy and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel star Borstein recalled a formative fan interaction with Hoffman wherein he harangued her for saying that Tootsie was a beacon of hope for “ugly” women like herself.

You would have thought Borstein called Hoffman “doll” by the way he flipped his wig.

When asked about her biggest pet peeves with an entertainment industry that, as Tootsie demonstrated, can be generously described as grating for the non-model women within it (and for the models, too, in fact), Borstein griped about Hollywood’s “wild obsession and focus on youth and beauty,” though the three-time Emmy-winner offered an apology to “all the beautiful young people” in attendance who may have been offended by such a slight.

To illustrate her point, Borstein offered an anecdote, asking the crowd, “The movie Tootsie, anybody heard of it?” Borstein then recalled. “I once ran into Dustin Hoffman, and I said to him, ‘God, I’m such a fan. I love you. You showed me that I can still be an ugly woman and get on a movie.’” Borstein said that Hoffman “laughed at first,” but, upon realizing the seriousness of Borstein’s self-deprecating praise, “He said, ‘Don’t you do that! Stop that! Don’t you do that! You are not ugly! You are beautiful! You are different! You are packaged differently!’” Borstein summarized. “He lost his shit!”

“It really was a moment,” Borstein reflected of Hoffman’s explosive pep talk, saying of its impact, “Lo and behold, and I’m still here.” Borstein then lamented of the entertainment industry’s belittling beauty standards, “So many people are starting to look exactly the same. … I’ve been so excited to see that the Emmys of late have been going to people of a certain age (who have) done their time.”

As Hoffman’s feedback for Borstein and his work on Tootsie (but possibly not his workplace behavior) demonstrate, talented women who don’t fit the “ideal” mold of a movie star will always have a place in Hollywood, even if they have to fight extra hard for it. After such an inspiring speech, you’d best believe that Borstein’s directors know how to spell her name. 

Well, the first one at least.