Star Spotlight: Phillip Seymour Hoffman
First of all, thanks to everyone who read my first Star Spotlight on Ryan Gosling. My next star spotlight will be about a man who I consider one of, if not the best actor around today: Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
I’m probably not alone when I say Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the greatest living actor today, after all, he has won an Academy Award. Despite this, I do think he’s criminally underrated and relatively unheard of compared to Hollywood A listers, who aren’t nearly as capable as big Phil.
Acting since the early 1990s Phillip Seymour Hoffman had bit part roles in such movies like Scent of A Woman and Twister. Phillip Seymour Hoffman half got a break by being one of P.T Anderson’s go to guys offering great performances in Anderson’s Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love. However, outside of his friendship with Anderson, Mr Hoffman was still a bit part player in the big world of movies.
In the start of the 21st century, Phil’s stock rose slightly. However, it wasn’t until 2005 where Big Phil got his big break in 2005’s Oscar nominated Capote. This is arguably, where Phillip Seymour Hoffman showed us all how good of an actor he really is claiming the Academy Award for his portrayal of writer Truman Capote.
Since then, Hoffman hasn’t looked back, staring in mega bucks blockbusters like Mission Impossible 3, Brit comedies like The Boat that Rocked and other Academy Award nominated movies such as Charlie Wilson’s War, The Savages and Doubt. In the last six years, Phil has really cemented himself as a respectable actor in Hollywood, who can give both Blockbuster and Award winning performances.
The trend of Phillip Seymour Hoffman doing Academy Award nominated movies looks to continue as he’s just starred in George Clooney’s The Ides of March and alongside Brad Pitt in Baseball movie Moneyball, both possibilities in next year’s Award season.
Unlike a lot of Actors, Phillip Seymour Hoffman has a light schedule of films coming up with only A Late Quartet and The Master in the works. The Master sees Phillip Seymour Hoffman teaming up with old friend Paul Thomas Anderson again.
This light schedule could be one of the reasons that Phillip Seymour Hoffman may be overlooked when it comes to high profile roles. Unlike many other actors, it seems that big Phil doesn’t like to saturate the market with his face, bringing out only one or two movies a year with him in it.
While that may seem like a bad point in becoming well known, it seems to work for him, because the man doesn’t do a bad performance. From The Savages to Mission Impossible to The Boat that Rocked to Charlie Wilson’s War, Phil does it all. All four of the films mentioned are very different in tone and genre, each offering up a completely different character for Phil. A task which, he accomplishes with ease.
The Boat that Rocked is an average film at best, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman still steals the show with his portrayal of Radio Legend ‘The Count’. Furthering this, I think it’s unfortunate that Phillip Seymour Hoffman has only one Academy Award to his name. This is due to the fact that his performance ‘Gust Avrakotos’ in Charlie Wilson’s War is easily an Academy Award winning one. He was unlucky that it was the same year that Javier Bardem played ‘Anton Chigurh’ in No Country for Old Men.
Despite, not being known by fans worldwide, it’s easily seen that Phillip Seymour Hoffman is acknowledged as one of the best in the world by his peers. And due to normally preferring ‘lesser’ known movies, I think he would prefer it that way.
What do you guys think? Do you agree about Big Phil’s talent? Or think I’m hyping him up too much?
Feel free to let me know.
Twitter: @glamgrunge
Until next time, enjoy the show.
Daniel Morris.
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