Philip Seymour Hoffman: a tribute

Culture Whisper remembers the talent of the extraordinary actor, producer and director Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014) by charting a career of flawless performance. 

Hoffman first entered the public consciousness in 1998, starring as the manservant to millionaire Jeffrey (The Big) Lebowski in the Coen Brothers’ cult hit The Big Lebowski. Today, Rolling Stone, has released an interview from 2008 with the Oscar winner, in which he describes its apparent failure, its later success, and most touchingly, talks empathetically about Lebowski as a man who didn’t want to “cause anybody any harm or any hassles”, something undoubtedly true of the actor himself.

In the same year Hoffman would light up our screens in Todd Solondz’s critically acclaimed Happiness (1998), followed by a portrayal of Freddie Miles alongside Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, and Jude Law in The Talented Mr Ripley (1999).

He was a perfect character actor, and, unlike some of his contemporaries, was able to portray dozens of different characters. Always believable and incredibly versatile, whether in a low budget independent film or starring in a big Hollywood blockbuster, Hoffman shone. Perhaps his most praised performance was as the lead in the incomparable Synecdoche, New York (2008), an existentialist piece slicked with wit, concerned with life, death and the nature of the stage. Hoffman played Caden Cotard a theatre director, riddled with obsessive doubts. Cotard was a great artist with no sense of scale - his tragic flaw. The portrayal resonates, given recent events. 

He would, of course, go on to win an Oscar playing Capote (2005) in the film of the same name. The movie flew on his acting alone, and the camera barely left him as he related the story of an American author, also gone before his time. A new generation has been introduced to Hoffman by the Hunger Games trilogy, but an older  audience will recall his heavily detailed performance in Doubt (2008), as a Catholic priest questioned by the school principal, Sister Beauvier (Meryl Streep), about his relationship with a young student. 

We have lost a man who brought so much energy, detail and ingenuity to every role. Although we have his work to remember him by, we cannot help but feel there was so much left for Philip Seymour Hoffman to do.