One of the Most Famous Movie Lines Happened by Accident

The Big Picture

• Some iconic lines in movies, like “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” from Jaws, were improvised by the actors in the moment.
• Dustin Hoffman claims that he improvised the “I’m walkin’ here!” line in Midnight Cowboy after a New York City taxi almost hit him and his co-star during filming.
• However, director John Schlesinger and actor Jon Voight believe that the cab driver was actually an actor paid to be part of the scene, and the line may not have been entirely improvised.

Every film follows a script, with actors rehearsing their lines over and over before filming even begins. Things don’t always go according to plan, though. Sometimes an actor will be “in the moment” becoming the character when a line will come to them, and they’ll spit it out. Comedians do this a lot, but you can find ad-libs in any genre. In Steven Spielberg‘s Jaws, arguably the most famous moment is when Roy Scheider‘s Chief Brody sees the shark and says, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” It’s one of the most famous lines in movie history, but Scheider improvised, making it up on the spot.

When you think of the most recognizable lines, few are bigger than “I’m walkin’ here!” Even if you can’t name where it comes from, you’ve heard it. That’s how ingrained it is in our culture. The line comes from 1969’s Midnight Cowboy. Starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, it’s Hoffman who yells the iconic phrase during a scene when he’s almost hit by a taxi cab. According to Hoffman, though, he made it up right there after an angry, impatient driver almost hit him for real in an unplanned moment. Is this really the case?

What Is ‘Midnight Cowboy’ About?

Midnight Cowboy was one of the most celebrated movies of the ’60s. Set in New York City, it’s the story of a friendship that forms between a male prostitute named Joe Buck (Voight) and a con man named Rico “Ratso” Rizzo. It became the first and only X-rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Waldo Salt picking up an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and John Schlesinger winning for Best Director. Though Hoffman and Voight were both nominated for Best Actor, they went home empty-handed, losing out to John Wayne for True Grit.

The film’s big moment comes when Buck and Rizzo are walking along a cross-walk on a New York City street. Hoffman is doing a higher, more nasally voice than he normally does, when suddenly the hood of a taxi comes into the frame as it screeches to a halt, almost hitting Hoffman. His fake accent promptly disappears, as the actor, not the character, thumps his hand on the taxi hood and yells, “Hey, I’m walkin’ here! I’m walkin’ here!” As the angry taxi driver flies by, screaming at Hoffman, the actor screams, “Up yours, you son of a bitch!” Moments later, Hoffman flips back to being Rizzo and says to Voight, “Don’t worry about that. Actually, that ain’t a bad way to pick up insurance.”

Dustin Hoffman Says He Improvised ‘Midnight Cowboy’s “I’m Walkin’ Here” on the Spot

The claim has been for decades that Hoffman made up the famous line on the spot, as the taxi driver was not part of the movie, but was instead just a real life New York City taxi driver who was so impatient with filming that he flew through the set, almost hitting Hoffman and Voight. It’s a story Hoffman sticks by. In a 2012 interview with the National Post, Hoffman said that Midnight Cowboy‘s budget was so low that they couldn’t pay extras, so they did “stolen shots,” meaning they just filmed around regular people going about their everyday life.

Hoffman talked about how there was a hidden camera across the street, and how he and Voight were supposed to hit the crosswalk right as it turned green. He added, “And we do it, and the first take a cab jumps the light … I wound up saying, ‘I’m walkin’ here!’ But what was going through my head is: ‘Hey, we’re makin’ a movie here! And you just f–ked this shot up.’ But somehow something told me you’d better keep it within the character. And then Schlesinger jumps out of the van and goes, ‘What happened? What happened? What happened?’ We told him, he says, we have to do it again just like that. That’s in the movie. It almost hit us, that guy.”

Jon Voight and Director John Schlesinger Aren’t Sure the ‘Midnight Cowboy’ Line Was Improvised

While that might be Hoffman’s version of events, and the version that’s considered fact by most, actor Jon Voight and director John Schlesinger tell it differently. In an interview, Voight said Schlesinger told him the cab driver was an actor paid to do that. Voight agrees, however, that the driver wasn’t supposed to get close to hitting them. “When he did almost do that, then Dustin came up with that line, but we were always in preparation for improvisation.” In an 2000 interview with Venice Magazine, Schlesinger was asked about the Midnight Cowboy scene. He said, “I don’t know that that was improvised. I think we got an extra inside a cab and did it. I can’t swear to the fact that it was in the script or not, but I don’t think that was improvised.”

Whether Hoffman is telling the truth, or thinks he is because he didn’t know the cab driver was an extra, or is flat out lying for effect, it’s still a great moment in one of America’s most important films. It certainly feels ad-libbed with how much Dustin Hoffman’s voice changes in the moment from his character, but with how great of an actor he is, fooling everyone would be easy.

Midnight Cowboy is available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.

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