Hoffman’s Bafta Stage Fright

Veteran actor DUSTIN HOFFMAN was crippled with fear when he presented a prize at the recent BAFTA Awards in London - because his stage fright kicked in just before the crucial moment.

The Rain Man star has always been scared of public speaking, and he was feeling particularly nervy when he was due to hand out the coveted Best Film trophy at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards in London on Sunday night (21Feb10).

And Hoffman admits he’s glad officials at the ceremony gave him a speech to read out when he presented Kathryn Bigelow with her award for The Hurt Locker - because he was in a “terrible” state by the time he took the stage.

He says, “I still get terrible stage fright. I think it’s an adrenaline thing but I get so scared and (Sunday night) was really bad. I do usually try to prepare a speech for things like this, but I have to admit that the last four lines of my speech were written by BAFTA and I had to ad-lib the rest. I got nervous, see.”