Dustin Hoffman Got Method Acting Mean on Meryl Streep During 'Kramer vs. Kramer' Shoot

Back in the late 1970s, Dustin Hoffman, one of Hollywood's biggest stars, had producers hire Meryl Streep for Kramer vs. Kramer, apparently in part because her boyfriend at the time, John Cazale, had just died. In a recent view into the past, it has been revealed that Hoffman, a Method actor, pushed Streep during the shoot by taunting her about her dead boyfriend and even slapping her.

Next month, Harper will release Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep, a biography of the actress many consider the best of all time. In it, author Michael Schulman tells a story about the filming of Kramer vs. Kramer, the film that would make Streep a star.

Schulman himself wrote an adaptation of the biography for Vanity Fair, talking about the struggles that ultimately led to Streep's success, shortly after Cazale, best remembered as Fredo Corleone in The Godfather, passed away.

According to Schulman, Hoffman, who was going through a low point in his own career as a Hollywood star, pushed for Streep to get the role partly because she'd bring new depth to the character of Joanna and partly because she'd recently suffered losing her boyfriend and she was "still shaken to the core" about it.

And it seems Hoffman wasn't above reminding Streep about the experience.

"He was goading her and provoking her, using stuff that he knew about her personal life and about John to get the response that he thought she should be giving in the performance," Richard Fischoff, one of the film's producers, told Schulman about filming one of the scenes.

Schulman also claims Hoffman slapped Streep to get a bigger emotional response from her, which left her livid.

While no official statement has been made regarding the veracity of Schulman's investigation, one of Streep's reps recently told Gossip Cop that the actress "had made no contribution" to the book and that she hadn't even read it.

If Schulman's claims are true, this type of on-set abuse may have paid off: both Streep and Hoffman earned their first Oscars with the 1979 film. Hoffman has another Academy Award to his name, for Rain Man; Streep is the most Oscar-nominated actress in history and has won two more, for Sophie's Choice and for The Iron Lady.