Dustin Hoffman is Michael Dorsey, the actor’s actor who can’t get a job until a drag transformation lands him a leading role on a daytime soap opera. “No one will hire you” his on-screen CAA agent (and off-screen director) Sydney Pollack tells him. Behind the scenes, though, it was the co-chair of CAA Mike Ovitz, who just happened to be Hoffman, Pollack and Bill Murray’s agent, who was trying to convince Pollack to hire himself to play the agent on screen. Hoffman’s legendary transvestism isn’t the only instance in the film, naturally enough. When it came time to shoot the sequences in the (nonexistent) CAA New York offices, the crew simply redressed Columbia’s own suite. CAA had practically taken the place over already.