Dustin Hoffman's Memoir Look at Me Goes on Sale With Tales of The Graduate
Dustin Hoffman's memoir Look at Me is scheduled for publication on 10 November 2026, and its account of making The Graduate has drawn early attention. The Guardian published its review of the book on 9 November, and the review singles out several of Hoffman's stories from the set.
The book is credited to Hoffman and Ariel Levy, a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine. The Guardian reports that Levy ghostwrote it, which means a professional writer shapes the text for a named author. The book runs to 320 pages and carries the ISBN 9781668200698, the number that identifies a specific edition to booksellers and libraries.
The English-language edition comes from Gallery UK, an imprint (a publisher's own branded label inside a larger company) of Simon & Schuster UK. The Bookseller, the British trade paper, reported that Gallery UK had acquired the memoir in April 2026. Goldmann, a Penguin Random House imprint, has also announced that it will publish the book, according to a Bertelsmann announcement dated 16 October 2026. Bertelsmann is the German media group that owns Penguin Random House.
The most talked-about material concerns Laurence Olivier's remark to Hoffman, "Try acting, dear boy." The Guardian reports that Hoffman says the moment did not come from method acting, the practice of staying in character off set to build a role. Instead, he says, it followed a night of partying and cocaine at Studio 54, the New York nightclub, and an arrival on set looking terrible.
The Graduate, the 1967 film, is where Hoffman's account is most pointed. Director Mike Nichols cast him, then a Broadway up-and-comer, against type as the young man seduced by an older woman. Audiences and studios had expected a Robert Redford figure. Hoffman was 30 when he played the role, and he was made up to look younger. His co-star Anne Bancroft was 36 and lit to look older, the Guardian reports.
Hoffman has been public about his unhappiness on that shoot. In a Guardian report published in early November, he described filming as "a terrible experience" because of Nichols' "sadism". The memoir also includes a warmer moment: a story about his father being allowed to visit the set to watch filming.
Hoffman is a two-time Academy Award winner. His memoir arrives in bookshops with a double publishing history, one English edition from Gallery UK and one from Goldmann, and with a version of 1960s Hollywood that comes from the man who was in the middle of it.
