John Oliver challenges Dustin Hoffman over alleged sexual harassment: Read their heated exchanges

As actor Dustin Hoffman continues to weather allegations of sexual harassment, a high profile spat between him and comedian John Oliver broke out at a Tribeca Institute screening of the movie "Wag the Dog".

The exchange between the two men features Oliver grilling Hoffman on the accusations, while Hoffman attempts to explain his side.

At one point, Oliver appears to be referring to Anna Graham Hunter, who has alleged that Hoffman made inappropriate comments and unwanted sexual advances towards her while she was a 17-year-old production assistant on the set of "The Death of A Salesman" in 1985. Hoffman has previously issued an apology about his alleged behaviour.

"I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything that I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation," Hoffman said in a statement released weeks ago. "I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am."

Oliver refuses to take Hoffman's explanations that such conduct was just normal for that period of time and on movie sets.

"This is something we're going to have to talk about because... it's hanging in the air," Mr Oliver says during the discussion, which was caught on camera.

You can read a portion of the transcript of the exchanges - which were a part of a much longer discussion that lasted well over an hour - below.

DH: I was talking to my agent, my publicist: What do I do now? and they said what you cant do or what's not a good idea is that if you get into a dispute it lengthens the argument. She comes back and says this. I come back and say that. She says that.

So they said what you should do is just apologize. but there’s a key word that’s left out in the quote I suppose, you know, as it goes around the world at a clip. And that is “if” I did anything to her that was, you know, out of sorts, or I embarrassed her, I apologize. [unclear]

And the word “if” was important. Now it just says he apologizes.

JO: Yeah, exactly, “might”. I mean the, the, the intention to say [unclear]… I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that any thing I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I’m sorry, it’s not reflective of who I am.

DH: Today. And they leave that out, too.

JO: Yeah, I mean…

DH: No, but that’s a difference.

JO: It.. What you stated… I mean, it’s that part of it [unclear]…’it’s not reflective of who I am’. It’s that kind of response to this stuff that p***es me off because it is reflective of who you were. If it happened and you’ve given no evidence to show that it didn’t happen, there was a period of time, for a while, when you were creepy around women. So, it almost feels like a cop out to say oh this isn’t me. Do you understand how that feels like a dismissal?

DH: It’s difficult to ask that question. You weren’t there. You didn’t—

JO: I’m glad.

DH: Oh the many judgement [unclear]

—

DH: We were doing this. And to break it up, actors, people on crew, all these things — you do things. You say things. So suddenly one of the things was you come to work on Monday: “Did you have sex Friday?” You break it up. Everyone was saying it to each other. It’s a thing. You know, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in that kind of situation. But, it becomes a fad in which, you know, I said a stupid thing, you know, but I said it in the midst of the crew.

And they said their stupid things. But they were sexual in terms of the humour of it.

But that’s 19… That’s 40 years ago.

JO: I don’t.. I don't love that response either.

DH: What response do you want?

JO: It’s not for me to say. It’s just, it feels like dismissals, or re-contextualizing it or not actually addressing it. It doesn’t feel self reflective in the way that it seems the incident demands.

[unclear]

I get no pleasure from having this conversation. But you and I are not the victims here. That’s the thing. So, I read today [unclear] there’s one line that has been rattling around my head. She said, “no one is 100 per cent good or bad.”

True, right?

“Dustin’s a pig but I like him a lot.”

Look, that is both extremely generous and damning.

DH: Do you believe this stuff that you’re reading?

JO: I believe what she wrote, yes.

DH: Why?

JO: Because there’s no point in her lying.

DH: Well, there is a point in her not bringing this up for 40 years.

JO: Oh, Dustin…

—

DH: I did not say I was groping her. We were sitting next to each other. You want to hear the story in context? We were sitting on a bed. We had tried to do a [unclear] that went on for 10 minutes, trying out for the Graduate, both of us, we were told three days before to memorize this dialogue. I had flown out from New York, Nichols was very unhappy with the way it was going because it wasn’t going well, and we’re sitting there. he’s standing there and he’s like, ‘let’s try ti again.’

And she’s looking down and she’s very unhappy and I’m very unhappy, and I’m sitting here, and she’s sitting there, and I went over and I went like that [lightly taps the woman sitting next to him on stage].

Nothing! And she was very upset and she turned and she said don’t you ever do that to me again. And it as, i thought an overreaction overreaction because of what was going on all day. she later apologized. we were very good friends. but you take it, this is an assaulter, this is a female assaulter, he’s admitted it. It’s so skewed.

JO: I mean I don’t even hear the same thing in the story that you just told that, I think, you do. I think I hear her being upset about you touching her and then somehow apologizing for being upset by the situation. But, I think to… I… I don’t want to listen to every time because, you’re right, I wasn’t there.

But, I guess, the thing that you said that was interesting to me is the things that we do between takes. I think it’s the rooms that we do between takes that there’s probably a cultural shift that need stop happen…. To see what may seem completely fine or normal to a certain group of people, and have victims on the other end of it. So the things that we do between takes sounds benign if it is. Does that make sense?

DH: No it doesn’t. Because the crew and the actors are there, we are one. We are a family. Maybe I shouldn’t have said things, but they’re trying to break up the tension of shooting for 16 hours.. They bring these interns on the set to watch. No-one told us. No-one said, “oh these girls are 17 years old”. I didn’t even know they were there.