Meryl Streep: Dustin Hoffman 'overstepped' during 'Kramer vs Kramer' scene

Veteran actor Meryl Streep feels that her 'Kramer vs Kramer' co-star Dustin Hoffman "overstepped" when he slapped her for real during a scene for the 1979 Oscar-winning film. In an interview with a newspaper, Streep said that it is tricky for an an actor when it comes to shooting scenes because "you have to feel free".

On Streep's first day on the sets of 'Kramer vs. Kramer', the actor shot a physical scene with Hoffman where he slapped her.When asked about the infamous incident, Streep said, "This is tricky because when you're an actor, you're in a scene, you have to feel free. I'm sure that I have inadvertently hurt people in physical scenes. But there's a certain amount of forgiveness in that. But this was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping."
"But I think those things are being corrected in this moment. And they're not politically corrected; they're fixed. They will be fixed, because people won't accept it anymore. So that's a good thing," Streep said. In the wake of Harvey Weinstein scandal, Hoffman was one of the actors to be accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by women he worked with.
In an article written last month, author Anna Graham Hunter opened up about her encounter with Hoffman when she was a minor. Since then more women have come forward and narrated their encounters with Hoffman.