Meryl Streep on Dustin Hoffman: 'Kramer vs Kramer slap was overstepping'
In the wake of misconduct allegations levelled at Dustin Hoffman, which his lawyer has called "defamatory falsehoods", Meryl Streep has spoken about an incident between the pair on the set of 1979's Kramer vs Kramer, in which Hoffman, without her prior approval, slapped her across the face during a scene.
Streep was asked about the story during a joint interview with Tom Hanks for The New York Times, where she said that the incident was "tricky" because "when you're an actor, you're in a scene, you have to feel free... But this was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping."
She added, "But I think those things are being corrected in this moment. And they're not politically corrected; they're fixed. They will be fixed, because people won't accept it anymore. So that's a good thing."
But she was also quick to insist that events that occurred decades ago, including incidents in which she was physically harmed, should be looked at today in a different light, adding: "Now that people are older, and more sober, there has to be forgiveness, and that's the way I feel about it.
"I don't want to ruin somebody's mature life," she continued. "I just don't. I do think if the world is going to go on, we have to find out a way to work together, and know that it's better for men if they respect us deeply as equals."
While Streep has in the past described Hoffman as an "obnoxious pig", Hoffman would later blame his treatment of her on the Kramer vs Kramer set as a product of his drug use and real-life divorce at the time, matters he said "depleted me in every way."
In the same interview with the Times, Streep also rejected accusations that she knew about Harvey Weinstein's behaviour, following right-wing street art that appeared in Los Angeles last month claiming she was complicit in his misconduct, which the artist admitted in an interview with The Guardian was groundless.
"Honestly for me in terms of Harvey, I really didn't know," Streep said. "I did think he was having girlfriends. But when I heard rumours about actresses, I thought that that was a way of denigrating the actress and her ability to get the job. That really raised my hackles.
"I didn't know that he was in any way abusing people. He never asked me to a hotel room. I don't know how his life was conducted without people intimately knowing about it."
Finally, Streep turned the conversation around to the Trump family, insisting that while she has been challenged to speak out about sexual misconduct, others have stayed silent.
"I don't want to hear about the silence of me," she added. "I want to hear about the silence of Melania Trump. I want to hear from her. She has so much that's valuable to say. And so does Ivanka. I want her to speak now."
Streep and Hanks were promoting The Post, Steven Spielberg's timely real-life drama about the Washington Post's decision in 1971 to publish stories that implicated the US government in widespread corruption.
