Dustin Hoffman has added "director" to his long list of accomplishments. — Management+Artists

En español | One of life's key lessons, says Dustin Hoffman, is that the past sticks with you. "The traumas are right there, and they affect you."

And so it is that the two-time Academy Award-winning actor's traumas — including loads of rejection before landing his seminal role as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, back in 1967 — linger close to the surface.

• See Dustin Hoffman's career in pictures 
• 2013 Movies for Grownups Awards

They made it tricky for Hoffman, after nearly 50 years in front of the camera, to step behind it for his film directorial debut, Quartet, about a group of opera singers who end up at a home for retired musicians. (See the movie trailer, below.) Casting the film proved particularly difficult for Hoffman; realizing he couldn't reject an actor he'd met in person, he ran the potential players through his casting director first.

Yet Hoffman's struggles help make Quartet a powerful film: a moving portrait of friendship and frailties. That's because his own difficulties gave birth to the thoughtful person he remains today. They are what drive him to arrive on time, to the minute, for our interview. They're what compel him to pull out a chair, to offer me a bagel, to compliment me on my questions. And they're why this father of six and grandfather of two still appears — though his hair's a bit grayer than it was the last time we met; his midline, a little softer — to be a wonder-eyed boy with an infectious smile.

While sipping a concoction of liquid vitamins, the recent Kennedy Center honoree talked about how Quartet's mortality themes drove him to ponder his life — to see how far he's come, and how little he's changed.

AARP: Do you feel proud that at 75 you did something you've never done before?

Dustin Hoffman: An honest answer: I directed a play on Broadway. I blamed my own demons for waiting 35 years to do it again. Why did I fight it? Because it's a thrilling opportunity to be the one who holds the paintbrush.

AARP: Tell us about Quartet.

DH: It's based on the true story of how [the Italian opera composer] Verdi bequeathed his mansion to retired musicians because, in their prime, some had played La Scala but now couldn't pay the rent.

AARP: You're a jazz pianist, right? Did the music draw you to the project?

DH: I'm a wannabe! The extraordinary jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, who played into his 90s, died recently. I don't want these people to go; there's so much left in them. But opera singers, like athletes and dancers, take years to reach excellence; then it's a short shelf life. The characters in Quartet could no longer perform near their best.

AARP: But that sounds depressing; Quartet offers an uplifting view of old age.

DH: It's an affirmative movie but still reality. There's this cloud of mortality hovering over the characters and binding them. As we were working on the film, I asked Billy Connolly [one of its stars], "What's the movie about?" And he said, "Don't die until you're dead." I thought that nailed it.

AARP: In addition to its stars, the film features real musicians ages 70-plus.

DH: Brilliant artists — and no one had rung their phone for 30 or more years. They showed up at 6 every morning and worked sometimes 14 hours a day without a whimper, with such dedication and joy. It infected all of us.

Next page: Thinking of 75 as middle age. »