Jon Voight Shares His Story Of Dustin Hoffman’s Iconic Scene 45 Years Later Only4Media.com

Jon Voight shares his story of Dustin Hoffman’s iconic “I’m walkin’ here!” scene in Midnight Cowboy. Released in 1969, the film follows the unlikely friendship between two hustlers in New York City, one a naive male prostitute from Texas named Joe Buck and the other an ailing con man referred to as Ratso. Hoffman and Voight star in the two lead roles alongside Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Salt, and Barnard Hughes.

During a recent interview with Jake’s Takes promoting his new movie Reagan, Voight shared his story of Hoffman’s iconic “I’m walkin’ here!” scene in Midnight Cowboy. Watch the portion of the video below:

Voight explains that Hoffman’s iconic “I’m walkin’ here!” line from Midnight Cowboy was improvised when a real New York City cab driver, frustrated about waiting, drove through the shot. Hoffman instinctually reacted in character, and Voight focused on staying in the scene, knowing they were capturing something special. Read his full comments below:

Somebody was supposed to hold up the cabs when we crossed that street and what happened was the guy tried to stop this guy from going, and he said, “The hell with it, I’m going,” he was waiting there for 10 minutes while we were fooling around, and he had to get his work done. So he was upset. He was a New York cab driver, he didn’t give a damn about a movie being done. So he comes charging across the street and Dusty sees him and hits the thing, he does the whole thing, “I’m walking here, I’m walking here.” He does the whole thing and I see this happening and all I’m saying to myself is, “Stay in character, don’t break, this is it,” and he says this line, “That’s a good way to get insurance, you know,” whatever it was, and I knew he had that line stored up in him to say somewhere in the film and the thing that just happened, he did that instinctually, and then we just stayed with it and all I was saying was, “Just stay in the scene, stay in character.” That’s not my scene, it’s not no joke, just stay in character, and we got it, and they said, “We got it.” I said, “Yeah we got it!” I was so happy you know.

Did Dustin Hoffman Improvise “I’m Walkin’ Here!” On Midnight Cowboy?

There Are Some Differing Accounts

Hoffman’s “I’m walkin’ here!” line, which ranks 27th on the American Film Institute’s top 100 movie quotes of all time, is perhaps the most iconic aspect of Midnight Cowboy, which itself ranks 43rd on AFI’s top 100 greatest films of all time. However, whether the line was actually improvised by Hoffman has been the subject of some debate over the years. Producer Jerome Hellman challenges the idea that the line was improved, saying that Ratso pretending to be hit by a taxi to fake an injury was included in the original draft of the script.

However, Hoffman has said that, during filming, they had to do multiple takes to get the timing right with the traffic light so they wouldn’t have to stop walking. In one take, the timing was perfect, but a cab almost hit them and while Hoffman considered shouting, “We’re filming a movie here!” he chose to stay in character, allowing the take to be used. Voight’s side of the story, as recounted above, seems to corroborate Hoffman’s account.

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Regardless of whether it was improvised, the line acts as the perfect microcosm of Hoffman’s authentic performance. For Midnight Cowboy, Hoffman received his second Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role, an award he would later win twice for Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man. Hoffman and Voight’s performances, the latter also receiving an Oscar nod in the same category, went a long way towards cementing Midnight Cowboy‘s iconic status in cinema history, as it’s the only X-rated film, the equivalent of the current NC-17 rating, to win Best Picture.

Source: Jake’s Takes