When two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman first read the script for the indie film, “Tuner,” he was astonished by how Academy Award-winning documentary director Daniel Roher (“Navalny”) had navigated his first narrative fiction thriller.
Credit: Black Bear Pictures
“This was the first time in over 50 years of doing this, a guy came up to me and said, I wrote this for you,” he acknowledged during a recent press chat. Hoffman plays Harry Horowitz, a gifted tuner who is well-versed in fixing pianos.
“The role of a piano tuner immediately resonated with me on a personal level,” he said.
At a private screening at Black Bear Pictures in Los Angeles, the seven-time Academy Award nominee told the audience: “Somehow Daniel knew that (in real life) I played the piano.”
He continued: “Daniel sent me a script, and I liked it very much. I told him it was very well written….I was in Europe, and he flew over to London on his own dime, and we just talked….What particularly struck me was the original way the story evolved into a heist genre; it felt fresh and compelling.”
In response to Hoffman’s praise, Roher said: “When Dustin responded positively to the screenplay, it was like the greatest endorsement of my work that I ever could have imagined….To see him work was just remarkable for all of us. ”
Hoffman said he was “shocked” because he had never met anyone like Roher before, who had worked on many layers of the crime-romance film.
“It was a unique experience to have someone like that. He did everything, I don’t know if I have ever seen that before. He’d never made a (fictional) film, he never written a screenplay. He did everything–he wrote the script, casted the characters himself, he learned about piano tuners, and he actually hung out with them and learned so much about them.”
He added: “I was appreciative of how open he was in allowing me to improvise… Daniel ‘just let me go.’ He genuinely likes actors, and he was very open to improvisation, which I love.”
Hoffman had attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, and actually hoped to become a concert pianist before becoming a dynamic actor, starring in legendary roles like “The Graduate,” “Tootsie” and “Midnight Cowboy.”
“Having spent my life playing piano and taking lessons early on from teachers who were also piano tuners, I’d become aware of how these craftsmen are often quite accomplished pianists themselves, yet remain under-appreciated… I found it ironic that they couldn’t make a living doing what they loved.”
Even with all his piano playing experience, Hoffman learned a valuable lesson, after talking to the tuners who Roher had spent time with for months, consulting for the film.
“I found out that while I had played piano all my life, and I didn’t know certain things…one (tuner) guy said to me, ‘every piano is different.’ Some of this is in the film. And he said, ‘a piano has a soul.’ In all this time of doing this, I had never heard someone say that before.”
Hoffman has great chemistry with the masterful British actor, Leo Woodall (“The White Lotus,” “Nuremberg”) who plays Niki, Harry’s kind-hearted apprentice, a gifted young prodigy who has perfect pitch and sadly, a painful oversensitivity to everyday sound. Niki falls in love with a piano student (Havana Rose Liu) but ends up becoming mixed up with the wrong crowd and that’s when the chaos sets in!
“Niki is like a son to Harry,” Hoffman said, “and bringing that relationship to the screen with Leo was one of the best parts of making this movie. We hit it off immediately. Working together, especially improvising, and our genuine chemistry, comes through on screen.”
Broadway and film star, Tovah Feldshuh (who stars in Netflix’s “Nobody Wants This”) plays Harry’s wife, playing the moral compass of the film. In one of the more light hearted scenes, there’s a cute discussion about what it takes to be a mensch, which in Yiddish means, a particularly good guy, who has a high level of integrity.
“You know how I got this movie?! They called me–one call!–and said, ‘do you want to be Dustin Hoffman’s’ wife?’ I didn’t even need to read the script, I took the role! Dustin produced the film called ‘A Walk on the Moon’ that I had the honor of playing an older woman.”
Turning to Hoffman, Feldshuh said: “you were a wonderful guy, and you gave us gifts, and I still have it. It is a dark green leather jewelry case with my initials TSF from you, and I want to thank you publicly for your kindness.”
Hoffman’s next project is his memoir, Look at Me, which is being published this year through Simon & Schuster’s Simon Six.
The book is described as an intimate account of his work as an actor, collaborating with numerous movie legends like Mike Nichols, Gene Hackman, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Laurence Olivier, Steve McQueen and Anne Bancroft.
In the Soundsphere video below, Liu and Woodall talk about how they loved working with Hoffman, and discussed what it was like to work on the film.
“He’s an endless well and geyser of new material, constantly improvising and keeping things fresh!” Liu enthused.