The Last Week Tonight host grilled the Oscar-winner during a Tribeca Institute 20th anniversary panel and screening of 1997 film Wag the Dog during which Hoffman vehemently defended his behaviour and accused Oliver of "making a very quick judgement."
"This is something we're going to have to talk about because... it's hanging in the air," Oliver said, in reference to the allegations that he sexually harassed Anna Graham-Hunter as a 17-year-old production assistant on the set of his 1985 TV film Death of a Salesman.
Audience members - including The Washington Post journalist Steve Zeitchik - were said to be "visibly shocked" by the interaction in which Oliver expressed disappointment in Hoffman's original apology in which he claimed the behaviour is not reflective of who he is.
"It's that part of the response to this stuff that pisses me off," Oliver stated. "It is reflective of who you were. You've given no evidence to show that it didn't happen. There was a period of time when you were a creeper around women. It feels like a cop-out to say, 'Well, this isn't me.' Do you understand how that feels like a dismissal?"
Comment: Here's what Hoffman is accused of so far, according to the piece by Anna Graham Hunter in the Hollywood Reporter: From Hunter's account, which includes alleged transcripts of her diary taken at the time, Hoffman sounds a bit like that creepy uncle many of us have. And if that characterization is true, Hunter appears to have handled herself fairly well: during week 2 of filming (week 1 seems to have been characterized by sexual banter by many on set), she says she hit Hoffman "hard" each of the 4 times he "felt her ass". Week 3, he apologized after she confronted him and he said he would stop his "wandering hands" and comments (e.g., yelling in front of others on set that Hunter thought he was a "sexist pig"). No other events of note after that. Week 5: "No one is 100 percent good or bad. Dustin's a pig, but I like him a lot."
What is most shocking here isn't so much Hoffman's alleged behavior, but that any young man or woman would enter a room of professional actors (or musicians, or artists) and be shocked by such "piggish" behavior. Do their parents not prepare them for real life? Artists have a reputation for a reason. And does such behavior - which essentially amounts to sexual banter offensive to some, but not sexual assault - really justify it being brought up 30 years later?
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