Dustin Hoffman is profoundly moved as he remembers and tells what he learned when he played the lead role in “Tootsie.” The video, recently surfaced and now gone viral, reveals how little men understood what it meant to be a woman 30 years ago. Playing a woman was of course challenging to Hoffman as an actor, but the experience also challenged his assumptions and attitudes that he had never questioned.

Playing Dorothy Michaels, Hoffman had an epiphany when he realized that his character wasn’t beautiful, and there was nothing he and his makeup artists could do about it. He would never have given Dorothy, his character, a second look, because he would have judged her exclusively by her looks. Hoffman is moved to tears when he thinks of how many fascinating women he never met or learned from or laughed with, because he was “brainwashed.” Watch the video after the…