Barry Levinson says Tom Cruise was “exceptionally good” at improvising with Dustin Hoffman in 1988’s Rain Man. The actors improvised while playing long-lost brothers on a cross-country trip; Levinson said the film sought to help audiences understand autism.
Levinson described Cruise’s character, Charlie, as an aggressive businessman who was not doing well and knew little about autism. Hoffman played Raymond, a man with autism. Hoffman won the best actor Oscar; the film also won best original screenplay, best director and best picture, and was 1988’s top-grossing movie.
Levinson’s latest project, the documentary Bucks County, USA, co-directed with Robert May, premiered on PBS Sept. 20 and is streaming there. It looks at how political divisions affect a community in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which has become a swing area in recent elections. Levinson said the filmmakers wanted to show the community and its problems, rather than conduct a political investigation.
