Philip Seymour Hoffman was an American actor. He was born on July 23, 1967 in Fairport, New York. He had two sisters and one brother. His parents Marilyn and Gordon divorced when he was nine. Marilyn took the children. Young Philip loved sports and baseball in particular. He saw a stage production of All My Sons when he was twelve and his interests changed towards theater. An athletic injury two years later confirmed his shift to acting.
He joined an acting club that nurtured his passion. He was admitted to the 1984 New York State Summer School of the Arts in Saratoga Springs at the age of seventeen. Future collaborators Dan Futterman and Bennett Miller were also in attendance. They were drawn to Hoffman’s intense passion. Philip attended New York University and received his drama degree in 1989.
An episode of Law & Order was his first screen appearance in 1991. His debut film was Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole. He was credited as Phil Hoffman. He adopted his grandfather’s name “Seymour” to avoid misperception with another actor. His breakthrough was in Scent of a Woman. Al Pacino won an Oscar. The acclaim was his turning point. Philip Seymour Hoffman quit his day job for acting.
Almost Famous
Small roles continued in the early nineties. Paul Thomas Anderson hired Hoffman in his debut film Hard Eight in 1996. Mainstream success was found in Twister soon after. The cult classic Boogie Nights (1997) was a reunion with Anderson. He appeared in five films in 1998. The Big Lebowski was the most important. Happiness, the most misanthropic. Patch would become one of the highest grossing of his career.
Time passed and his craft improved while working with Robert De Niro in Flawless (1999). Critics started to feel Hoffman’s presence. His ethos was cemented after Magnolia (1999) and another reintegration with Paul Thomas Anderson. He continued into The Talented Mr. Ripley to finish the nineties. His performance caught the attention of Meryl Streep. Stardom was inevitable.
He was cast into his first lead in Love Liza (2002). His performance was acknowledged despite the commercial failure. Another collaboration with Anderson spawned the cost-efficient Punch-Drunk Love (2002). He joined Anthony Hopkins in the high-budget prequel to The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon (2002). Spike Lee directed Hoffman and Edward Norton in 25th Hour (2002). Owning Mahowny granted him his second lead a year later.
Famous
Bit parts in Cold Mountain and Along Came Polly continued to fill his extensive filmography of box office successes. The biographical movie Capote (2005) won him an Academy Award for best Actor. It was nominated for four others. The plot followed Truman Capote’s experience writing In Cold Blood (1966). In 2006 Hoffman appeared in Mission: Impossible III as the villain. It grossed over four hundred million dollars and portrayed a brilliant dichotomy against Tom Cruise’s seemingly eponymous role.
Philip appeared in Sidney Lumet’s final film Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead in 2007 and Tamara Jenkins’s The Savages. His role in Charlie Wilson’s War earned him a Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Tom Hanks played Charlie Wilson. Synecdoche, New York was released in 2008. His opus was directed by Charlie Kaufman after writing several cult classics that included Being John Malkovich and Adaptation.
His first vocal performance was in Mary and Max (2009). It was devoid of an initial American release and shown at the Sundance Film Festival. The next decade started with Jack Goes Boating in 2010 and Moneyball a year after. The Ides of March came next. It was written and directed and starred by George Clooney. Hoffman earned his fourth BAFTA nomination. A fifth alliance with Anderson yielded The Master (2012). A Most Wanted Man (2014) was preceded by The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Part 2 followed. The second part would be a posthumous release.
Philip Seymour Hoffman died from amphetamine and benzodiazepines and a speedball on February 2, 2014. He was forty-six years old and found in his Manhattan apartment by his close friend and screenwriter and playwright David Bar Katz. Fifty bags of narcotics outlined the corpse on the cold floor. Needles too. His funeral was held on February 7th. Five days after the needle moving actor transcended space and time.
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”
– Philip Seymour Hoffman
A sad loss of a very talented man!
Very true! A decade gone.
He was an amazing actor, with a strong, authentic presence. It is such a shame that so many talented actors, actresses and people from the film industry in general, go under huge personal issues.
It is a great tragedy.
I lived in his neighborhood in Fairport. I hung with his older sister. He was my younger brother’s age; I didn’t pay much attention to him. His mother had an all-white living room that no one was allowed to enter; she had gold chains across the entrances. He resembled his mother greatly, especially as he grew older.
That is interesting. Thank you for sharing!
I just finished watching through the Hunger Games movies again–big sad when at the end of Mockingjay Pt.1 the black screen read “In loving memory of Philip Seymour Hoffman.” He is such a great presence those movies–the canny game-maker, making a real revolution.
He seemed to have a presence in all roles.