“I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.” — Lancaster Dodd in “The Master.”
On February 2, 2014 Philip Seymour Hoffman, the great character actor of his time, passed away at the age of 46 of a drug overdose in his Manhattan apartment. His death is still a shock to me, but if anything, his legend only grew these last 10 years. Tonight is probably an opportune time to watch one of his great performances.
Hoffman has been prominently featured these last few days in 10-year anniversary tributes and social media eloges. It does make sense why his passing would still resonate for thousands upon thousands of moviegoers. Any movie Hoffman appeared in, he’d elevate. That was just a fact. And you can still read and hear people saying that. It’s the most common compliment he seems to get, and probably the best one an actor would want to garner.
He won an Oscar for his portrayal of American writer “Capote,” but his career was so much more just than one film. In fact, it wasn’t even his best performance. Think of his legendary 5-film collaboration with director Paul Thomas Anderson, his brilliant interacting with Sandler in “Punch Drunk Love,” or his deadpan turn as A’s Manager, Art Howe, in “Moneyball,” or how about the depraved phone caller in Solondz’s “Happiness.”
Hoffman was a man engrossed with the characters he would play, and so dedicated to the art of acting, that he exuded an intensity that felt wholly authentic and, at times, even frightening. He left us at his peak, with so many more great performances left in him.
Maybe this nostalgia towards Hoffman doesn't just have to do with his being a great actor, and that he was, but also with our yearning for a time when movies felt more adult-oriented and a character actor like Hoffman could thrive on-screen. Just take a look at the wonderful films he starred in:
“Boogie Nights,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Magnolia,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “Almost Famous,” “Happiness,” “Punch Drunk-Love,” “The 25th Hour,” “Capote,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” “Charlie Wilson’s War,” “Synecdoche NY,” “Doubt,” “Moneyball,” “The Master.”
He was a transformative performer, overwhelming in his delivery, and utterly compelling in final result. He perfected the loser. The misfit. He could go from cool, calm and collected to suddenly exploding in anger, all at the fraction of a second. It’s very hard to quantify just how much the movies miss him.