Look At Me

Look at Me is both an intimate account of Dustin Hoffman's work as an actor, collaborating with the greats of the last six decades—Mike Nichols, Gene Hackman, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Lawrence Olivier, Steve McQueen, Ann Bancroft—in era-defining films, and a profound contemplation of mortality by a person entering his nineties and looking back on a remarkable life. (Hoffman was slated to be the failure in his family... he even failed at that.) Fans will finish this book feeling that they truly know Hoffman: the way his mind works; how he prepares for a part; his experience growing up in Los Angeles as a lower middle-class Jewish kid in the 1940s, then arriving in New York City full of passion in the late 50s, only to find himself crowned the "voice of his generation" in Life magazine by the end of the 60s. In the decades since, Hoffman has shown his brilliance and breadth in some of the most iconic movies of the Twentieth Century. In his memoir, he proves to be an ardent, entertaining, and deeply empathic storyteller… a narrator whose company you will relish.

A two-time Academy Award winner and seven-time nominee whose arrival in Hollywood helped usher in a new and revitalized approach to filmmaking, Dustin Hoffman continues to add singular performances to a career rich with characters that have obliterated the line previously dividing the archetypes of "character actor" and "leading man." He plans to live to be at least a hundred years of age, and he does not plan to retire. Ever. Ariel Levy has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2008 and received the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism in 2014. She is the host and co-creator of the podcast The Just Enough Family, and the author, most recently, of The Rules Do Not Apply.