I have used acting for discovering myself: Dustin Hoffman

London: Actor Dustin Hoffman, who rose to fame after starring in 'The Graduate', says he used acting to find himself.

The 77-year-old star revealed his childhood was not 'great', reported Contactmusic. "In the old days... I would get fired a lot. I would just react so strongly - it was an invasion of the only thing that I felt certain about. I had been a very bad student, I didn't have a great childhood, and acting was a way to be my own... everything," he said.

Meanwhile, Hoffman said he regrets not taking credit for helping to write the scripts for some of his most successful movies including 'Tootsie' and 'Rain Man'.

"I've been writing all along. I just have never taken credit for it - stupidly. I think now I'll take credit. Well, I co-wrote 'Kramer vs Kramer' with the writer-director (Robert Benton). When we were done, he said, 'I want to give you a writing credit' and I said, 'No, no, Bob, that's alright'. That was always my position. It got the Academy Award - for a few things, but one of them was writing," he said.