Dustin Hoffman: “Blindfold is recession-proof holiday gift”

“I’m serious,” Hoffman told a panel of giggling hosts on a daytime talk show this past week. “It’s affordable, it’s creative, it requires no batteries, whether A, double A, triple A or even D. Really, what you are giving is a unique, bedroom-based experience.”

According to Hoffman, we all touch, hear, taste and feel more intensely in the dark. “By putting on a blindfold and depriving our sense of sight, we can experience a whole new range of exquisite sensations and feelings.”

The blindfolds themselves can be made of any material, Hoffman says. “But the smoothest and most sensual material is probably silk – a silk scarf is perfect. So we’re talking $10, $12 here. Decide who will be the first to have a go, then the ‘sighted’ partner can tie the scarf around the ‘blind’ partner’s head.”

And the blindfold can have psychological benefits for both men and for women -- and especially those with body image issues, Hoffman opines.

“The blindfold can relieve a man of his sense of responsibility for doing all the right things, and it can also relieve a woman of her need to look the right way,” he says. “When a woman is blindfolded, her sexual experience will be eye-opening, in a manner of speaking. Without the mental stress of her appearance, she's free to lose herself in the sensations of the moment.”

At 71, Hoffman has now been a star for more than 40 years. In his latest movie, "Last Chance Harvey," coming out Christmas, he plays Harvey Shine, a man whom life has disappointed, and whose daughter nearly breaks his heart when she asks her stepfather to walk her down the aisle.

It's a part, Hoffman says, that was written specifically for him. And though, in real life, Hoffman walked his own daughter Jenna down the aisle, he and his character, Harvey Shine, have at least one disappointment in common.

"I originally wanted to be a jazz pianist," he said. "I still want to be a jazz pianist."

And when Harvey Shine woos Kate Walker (played by Emma Thompson) at the piano, Hoffman is playing his own composition, "Shoot the Breeze."

"The song is a song I wrote when I was in my 20s, when my first girlfriend left me for our acting teacher," he laughed. ""The lyrics were written later, by Bette Midler."

Hoffman knows a second career in music remains unlikely, but that doesn't stop him from hoping.

"If I got tapped on the shoulder by God, or whomever, and said, 'You know, I'll make you a jazz pianist from now on, but you can't act anymore,' I would take that in a second."

In the Joel Hopkins-directed “Harvey,” Hoffman plays a New York jingle-writer who doesn't quite toil in the tower of song; maybe in a small office in a nearby strip mall. He's older, tired, headed to London for his daughter's wedding and obsessing about getting back fast in time for a job-related meeting. Harvey's dreading the trip before he even takes it, which guarantees it will be dreadful, but then he meets Kate Walker (Emma Thompson), another single, singular person unwilling to confront the terrifying possibility of happiness.

Hoffman co-stars with Emma Thompson, Eileen Atkins, Kathy Baker, Liane Balaban and James Brolin.