Dustin Hoffman gave some advice to the makers of Kung Fu Panda via the Hartford Courant: “Anyone who does animation, who is involved with this extraordinarily intricate process, has to have real emotional issues and I hope you get help.” And if his Panda performance didn’t work? Hoffman smiles. “It’s the animators’ fault!” The 70-year-old, two-time Academy Award winner seems to be on a kids’ jag right now. He provides the words of an animated rat in The Tale of Despereaux due out Christmastime. It’s a given that Hoffman provides full input into any of his characters, whether flesh and blood or imagination and pixels. Artistic differences have tended to simmer instead of boil. “I never have fought on the set with the director,” explains the L.A. native and Strasberg grad. “You draw the line. They are the director, the captain of the ship, and you don’t show disrespect. You work it out privately.”