Dustin Hoffman Turned Down Role Of Rambo For Being Too Violent
When you think of Rambo strutting his stuff in some forest or other, gun in his hand, bullets hanging from every joint, and bad guys being blown apart every way you turn, who do you think of? Sylvester Stallone, or Dustin Hoffman perhaps?
Obviously it’s Stallone seeing as he has played the gun toting psycho in four films to date with a fifth being rumoured for production next year. If they leave it too long before making the next one, Stallone will be using a zimmer frame to get around in it.
However, it could have been a whole different story had Dustin Hoffman accepted the role of John Rambo for First Blood in 1982. According to Digital Spy, he told Extra that he was approached by producers first and Stallone only got the gig as a second choice.
“I was the first one to be asked to do Rambo, but it was a little too much violence.”
A little too violent? You can say that again. I just don’t know how the producers could have thought Hoffman was right for the role. Rain Man yes, Rambo no.
In the same interview, he also admitted regretting turning down Richard Dreyfuss’s role in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and being upset that the part of James Bond never came his way.
3 Comments
June 10th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Let me guess, Hoffman was offered the role in Cobra too? I can see Hoffman now emoting “you’re a disease, and I’m the cure.” Haha right.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
To be fair he was in Straw Dogs, and that was one of the most violent movies in the 70s…
October 22nd, 2010 at 1:03 pm
If you have ever read the original book “First Blood” you know that Dustin Hoffman suits the character of John Rambo as created by the author better than Sylvester Stallone. The entire point of the story was that nobody expected the kind of response they got. The theme was that these veterans coming back from Vietnam (the book was 1971 or 1972) were not born killers, they were made, and that as a society we have a responsibility to help them re-integrate into society.
The “too violent” claim is the current story. When Outbreak came out (before everything went straight to the Internet) Hoffman interviews regarding First Blood he just said the production took turns with which he disagreed. That may have made it more violent. The book was mostly shooting at a distance. John Stockwell’s book “The Praetorina Guard” (1991) affirms that “First Blood” was one film with which the CIA intervened in production for potential propaganda value.
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