Quote of the Day (Dustin Hoffman, on Unlikely Film Successes and Failures)

“We were shooting in North Carolina, we had an all-star cast, this great writer-director who won an Academy Award and we think we’re doing a work of art. Next door, just a hundred yards away, this other movie is being made and I can’t even pronounce the name of it. And I say, ‘What’s this piece of s--t called?’ ” (Speaking slowly, as if struggling with the pronunciation.) “Teenage ... Mutant ... Ninja ... Turtles. How cocky we felt! But it goes through the roof and our movie gets buried.”—Dustin Hoffman, speaking of making Billy Bathgate with director Robert Benton side-by-side with a now-notorious box-office champ, quoted in Matthew Garrahan, “Lunch with the FT: Dustin Hoffman,” Financial Times, February 13, 2012