So, i'm waiting outside the hotel door for my interview with Dustin Hoffman. On the other side of the door, I can hear the rather voluptuous journalist who went in before me screeching with laughter. A lot. And the reason? Well, Dustin Hoffman won't stop talking about her breasts. Her rather voluptuous breasts.

No matter what the poor girl asks, Hoffman brings it back to the chestal area. Again and again. And again. Both clearly have a wonderful time at this, but I'm not quite sure how much of the interview is going to be printable.

It's typical of Hoffman, though. When I last spoke to him, he offered up his opinion that it should be acceptable in society for a woman to be complimented on her breasts. And the reason it came up in our conversation was simply because I reminded him of our previous meeting, when, yep, Hoffman delivered his thoughts on the primitive urge for sex, stating: "I don't understand people who aren't horny."

When I'm finally through the door at London's Mandarin Oriental Hotel, I decide to remind Hoffman of our previous discussions about chesticles. After all, I'm beginning to see a definite pattern here ...

"It wasn't my fault," he smiles. "Someone mentioned bongos, and this rather large girl said I could play her bongos, and then it just got out of hand ... "

Outrageous. Then again, Hoffman's wife, Lisa Gottsegen, has warned her husband of 27 years that he lacks an edit button. What Dustin Hoffman also seems to lack is the ageing gene. The guy will be 71 on August 8th, and yet he looks like, well, your average middle-aged superstar actor. Which doesn't make any sense to me.

"It makes complete sense to me," Hoffman deadpans, followed by another laugh. I think that might be his anti-ageing secret -- laughing all the time.

There are a few laughs, but not that many, in Hoffman's latest movie, Kung Fu Panda, a big-budget, typically over-busy CG cartoon from DreamWorks Animation that tells the story of an unlikely chosen one (voiced by Jack Black) being reluctantly prepared for battle by the wise old yoga-loving red panda master, Shifu (voiced by young Mr Hoffman).

So, given that Dustin Lee Hoffman likes to think these things through, would a red panda really sit down?

"Would a red panda sit down?"

Shifu's a red panda, right?

"Yeah, a rare red panda ... "

A red panda reminds me a little of a red tomato ...

"When you say tomato, I think of salmonella."

I'm thinking of Tootsie ...

"You're thinking of Tootsie ... Oooh, now I get the connection."

In Tootsie he played a tortured actor who had to take the drag route to get some work in New York because of his difficult behaviour. Such as making a commercial shoot go a day over schedule because he refused to sit down. Because, you know, it was illogical for a tomato to sit down.

"I approached this differently," smiles Hoffman, "because they showed me the character early on, and said, you know, 'find a voice for it'. Because they're doing all the animation, and I felt that I didn't have to go out and research kung fu history and all that, which I was very happy about, because I'm not that kind of guy."

These days, Hoffman doesn't take on roles with one eye on the competition and one eye on the Oscars. He takes them on because "there's something there that tickles my interest, that makes me think, 'Yeah, I could have fun with that, and I could have fun with those people'."

So, when did this amazing transformation occur exactly? "You know, the truthful answer is, I don't think it has to do with my work so much as it has to do with me. At a certain point you can see the end of the tunnel, and you say, 'Now I'm going to start having some fun. I'm going to start to feel that I deserve a life.' So, I think, basically, that's what it is. For some reason, I have that rare reality of not having had a decrease in testosterone. Thus far ... "

Hoffman's first wife, Anne Byrne, gave him a daughter, Jenna Byrne, who went on to marry a red-haired, freckle-faced Seamus Culligan. How come, with all this Irish blood around him, Dustin Hoffman has never been to Ireland?

"I'm stunned too that I haven't made it to Ireland. And I haven't made it to Scotland, and so many other places I want to visit."

You know, I tell him, that you're a jet-setting superstar, right? You're supposed to fly all over the globe, and wave to the natives ...

"And I haven't. We raised six kids, and we were determined to have a home life for them. Now that they're all out of the house, I want nothing more. In fact, my kids go to the places I haven't been yet. My son Max, who's 23-years-old, and just recently was in Ireland, said: 'Dad, I can't believe you haven't been -- you'd love it so much there'."

Of course, a part of Dustin Hoffman has been in Ireland for many years now. Mainly the nose part, thanks to our Eurovision kamikaze entrant, the tonally-challenged turkey who took his name from the man sitting in front of me. Has this Dustin heard about that Dustin?

"No. I would have expected you to say a rabbit, but I'll take a turkey," he laughs. "I just hope they don't have Thanksgiving in Ireland, so my life isn't in danger should I be there ... "

Kung Fu Panda hits Irish screens this Friday

- Paul Byrne