Geena Davis credits Dustin Hoffman for helping her fend off Jack Nicholson

It comes as no surprise that notorious horndog Jack Nicholson would have put the moves on Geena Davis back in the day. What does come as a surprise is that she’d credit alleged sex pest Dustin Hoffman with giving her the advice to avoid Nicholson’s advances. Promoting her new memoir Dying Of Politeness, Davis recalls the situation in a new interview with The New Yorker.

Hoffman, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by several women, apparently imparted a lot of advice to Davis on the set of her first film, Tootsie. (For instance: “Read a lot of books. And, if you see something you like, try to get the rights.”) Apparently, he warned her not to sleep with her co-stars, but to let them down easy by saying, “Well, you’re very attractive. I would love to, but it would ruin the sexual tension between us.”

Davis “saved that advice away,” and it came in handy fast. “After Tootsie, my modeling agent took me and a couple of other actor-slash-models to Hollywood to meet casting directors. He happened to know Jack Nicholson, and every single night Jack Nicholson had dinner with us,” she shares. “Then one day there was a note under the door that said, ‘Please call Jack Nicholson at this number.’ I was, like, I can’t believe it! So I said, ‘Hello, Mr. Nicholson. This is Geena the model. You called me?’ He said, ‘Hey, Geena. When is it gonna happen?’”

Davis continues, “I was, like, Oh, no—why didn’t I realize this is what it was going to be about? But it immediately came into my head what to say: ‘Uh, Jack, I would love to. You’re very attractive. But I have a feeling we’re going to work together at some point in the future, and I would hate to have ruined the sexual tension between us.’ He was, like, ‘Oh, man, where’d you get that?’ So it worked.”

This is not the first time Davis has recounted this story. When she shared it with Jimmy Kimmel back in 2014, she added the amazing detail that Nicholson had invited her and some model pals to his place for lunch “and made tuna fish sandwiches and milk.” Not the most sensual of meals, so who could blame her for letting him down easy? That said, it seems Nicholson was more impressed with the tactic than genuinely buying into it. Either way, it got him off her back!