Philip Seymour Hoffman c/d?

just saw this news. a huge loss; r.i.p. was a singular-star from his appearance in boogie nights forward.

RIP, PSH

Not the news I was expecting today. Utterly tragic. He played an absurd amount of great roles.

awful news. great actor.

this is so sad. he was one of those actors you take for granted cos he was in so many movies and he always did a great job. one of my fave performances of his was in "before the devil knows your dead". not an amazing movie but hes just so excellent in it.

he was a leading star, too, but he showed how amazing it can be to focus a career on character/supporting roles.

this is devastating.

terrible, just terrible.

Always brought a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to his roles.

Was really looking forward to more of him. Ugh.

addiction is so patient and crafty and vicious, such a nasty thief.

Well this is shit. rip.

Nothing further to add, other than that hearing he passed in such a way makes it doubly painful. Similar feeling to when Heath Ledger died.

I remember seeing Synecdoche, New York blowing my mind to pieces when I saw it as an 18 year old. Rest in peace.

An actor of real intelligence. I'm trying to think of anyone who could've played his loathsome snob in The Talented Mr Ripley; the role required him to be out of shape, a bit swollen, and, more importantly, effeminate, as if that was the reason why he loathed Tom Ripley. The moment when he realizes what Ripley wants out of Dickie is A+

One of the most OTM things I've read is that PSH and Jude Law should have swapped roles, actually.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/02/edelstein-on-philip-seymour-hoffman-1967-2014.html

Eight years ago, I ate lunch with Hoffman in the East Village for a New York Times profile and had a small inkling of his demons. Capote had just come out and he was the favorite to win an Oscar. (He did.) He talked about what it had taken for a man with a big head, big body, and big deep voice to embody a man with a small head, small body, and bizarre baby voice—about the training that wasn’t unlike what he’d done as a high school jock (yes, he was a jock!), pushing his body and voice to places he wasn't even sure were in reach. And then he talked about the editing fights he’d had with his old friend, the first-time director, Bennett Miller.

When you hear about cutting-room fights, it almost always means the star thinks he or she is coming off as too unlikable and wants the director to ratchet up the vulnerability quotient. But Hoffman was arguing to make Capote less attractive—to make him, in fact, thoroughly reprehensible. He said he told Miller, “The way toward empathy is actually to be as hard as possible on this character.”

I said I had no idea what he was talking about.

“I think deep down inside, people understand how flawed they are,” he said. “I think the more benign you make somebody, the less truthful it is.”

PSH OTM. Fucking gutted here...

So fucking sad. And my sadness is mostly selfish: it really feels like a personal loss, to me, to be deprived of any more PSH roles/ performances... decades of them. Damn. There's just no one else like him in contemporary American cinema, no one comes close. Today, with him gone, it just seems to me a bleak wasteland populated by vapid pretty boys.

this . . . sucks

He said he told Miller, “The way toward empathy is actually to be as hard as possible on this character.”

I said I had no idea what he was talking about.

Edelstein is no doubt drawing him out, as this is a point so obvious that it's of course missed by lesser actors

Damn, this is terrible. Anybody who could play his "Happiness" and "Lebowski" roles in the very same year had to be some kinda amazing actor. Loved him in Morbs' favourite "Owning Mahoney" too. RIP

i had forgotten about his lebowski role until this happened---so perfect

Love Lebowski, but somehow his role in it never stands out for me. On the other hand: Synecdoche, New York, Boogie Nights, Happiness, The Talented Mr. Ripley, 25th Hour, Love Liza, Owning Mahoney--hell, he was even great in the otherwise worthless Mission: Impossible III. I have a feeling I might be able to add The Master to that list had I seen it yet.

Damn. Just...damn.

just wanna stand up for MI3 for a second here its pretty good

it's much better than the second one that's for sure but i thought in general ghost protocol blew it away

i remember he did loser creeps so well (thinking of happiness here esp but scent of a woman and boogie nights have aspects of that as well) that i thought he might get stuck in that mode

Me too. I wrote that blog piece very early, right after Happiness. Then he did a 180 and played just the sweetest, gentlest character imaginable in Magnolia; my feelings on the film have changed over the years, sometimes liking it more than at other times, but I've never wavered on how great he is. And whenever he needed to go back into creep mode, he did so effortlessly--found him scary in Punch Drunk Love. Thought his phone showdown with Sandler was the best thing in that film.

still need to see the master

I want to play something for my students tomorrow, think I'll go with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k0-pSCwcx4

I have to be careful about language, but I'm sure they can handle "hell of a disease."

Watched The Hunger Games 2 today, was thinking what a pleasure he was to watch in even a relatively minor and thankless role. Heard the news shortly after finishing the film. RIP, his was a career you felt was not yet near its apex. Reckon he had another oscar in him.

ugh. Haven't been this bummed out since DFW died.

It really is just gutting. It's weird how a guy can be so iconic yet so ... like PHS was. Many new him, but was he a star? He was a great actor, but I think easy to overlook. All sorts of contradictions, many no doubt because he was such a good actor he put the role first. (sorry, been drinking) Have there been any/many public statements? PTA?

He was one of the few universally agreed-upon Great Actors, among both casual film fans and nerds/critics, plus he was quite young, and seemed much more down-to-earth / less pretentious than anyone he might be compared with. This struck a very unique nerve.

Like, when Daniel Day-Lewis passes, I can't imagine people taking it this personally.

yeah...it's weird to think of just how famous and respected he was without seeming to make too many concessions to the business. like, if the closest thing to 'selling out' that he did was kick ass in a Mission Impossible movie and be pretty funny in a middling Ben Stiller movie,

Streep's a good comparison as far as range and fully embodying a character.

I never knew he had a problem, and I guess he was candid about it from what I heard today on the radio. I haven't really ever been sad about an actor passing, but this hit me today while driving. I keep remembering him in Love Liza.

Streep's a good comparison as far as range and fully embodying a character.

― tbd (Eazy), Monday, 3 February 2014 04:07 (3 minutes ago) Permalink

buscemi, too. (boardwalk empire, aside)

So sad. Addiction is horrible and scary.

I was surprised to find CNN devoting so much airtime to it today. He's a major actor, but not really a celebrity, so I'm a bit surprised they'd care so much. I'm assuming its the drug angle that is responsible for the coverage--like, so people who haven't seen his movies and probably do nothing but watch CNN can sit there and cluck their tongues over Hollywood druggies.

i cant imagine anyone not liking, or loving him

I was surprised to find CNN devoting so much airtime to it today. He's a major actor, but not really a celebrity, so I'm a bit surprised they'd care so much. I'm assuming its the drug angle that is responsible for the coverage--like, so people who haven't seen his movies and probably do nothing but watch CNN can sit there and cluck their tongues over Hollywood druggies.

― Inside Lewellyn Sinclair (cryptosicko), Sunday, February 2, 2014 11:13 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he was in a lot of movies

i think the best actor oscar tipped him pretty well into genuine celebrity, if not household name status

i cant imagine anyone not liking, or loving him

― socki (s1ocki), Monday, February 3, 2014 2:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i can't either. i have the same kind of awful shocked sorrow about this that i had when phil hartman died.

He got a lot of acclaim for indie movies liked by a niche audience, like Happiness, or an outright popular disaster like Synecdoche. Capote grossed about $29 M in the US. I imagine the PTA movies have more of a cult following on home media than their grosses would indicate; I suspect Joe /Jane Average would name those or Hunger Games, or the MI movie if pressed.

Heroin can get fucked

I didn't love the guy all the time but his performances in Ripley + Synecdoche are all time imo

his moneyball broodin bit, and his character in charlie wilson's war are both great. his lester bangs was the only worthwhile part of almost famous.

Genuinely feel robbed of future roles. Fuck heroin...

hope they find his dealer. or that he fell off a cliff somewhere.

it's been such a shitty several months for awesome actors dying too young. also an acquaintance of mine had a personal connection to both gandolfini and hoffman and is really doubly slammed by this one.

Was looking on Netflix to see which of his movies are streaming. I don't think I ever heard about A Late Quartet.

I suspect Joe /Jane Average would name those or /Hunger Games/, or the MI movie if pressed.

Right. Cover of the daily mail this am http://t.co/QZ2vfGhRmi

WTF initial headline in the Australian Daily Telegraph (yes, Murdoch, obv.), toned down by now:
http://mumbrella.com.au/paying-respect-dead-203832