Summer of Stars is a MovieJawn celebration of actors that have shined on the silver screen. Follow along as we count down some of our favorite players from various eras in the magical cosmos of cinema

by Ian Hrabe, Staff Writer

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s rise from supporting character actor to award winning lead is one of the great success stories in modern cinema, and Hoffman’s untimely death in 2014 at the age of 46 is one of the great Hollywood tragedies...ever. We not only lost one of our all-time great actors, but we lost all the decades of roles he would have played. It’s hard to think of another actor who could bring that much intensity to his roles, quiet or otherwise. Just thinking back on my favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman roles now, my brain cycles through a series of wildly varied roles, and not the ones you’d expect when you think of his great roles. There’s the heartbroken, gas-huffing widow in Love, Liza. That scene where he is slapping Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. His turn as a villain in Mission: Impossible III, a mediocre movie that is watchable due to Hoffman’s intense brand of chaos. The hapless and hopeless Scotty in Boogie Nights. The psychopathic mattress salesman in Punch-Drunk Love. 

The list goes on and on and on and the more I think about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s roles, the more his loss hurts. Watching Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things last year, I couldn’t help but feel that Jesse Plemmons was playing a role written for a “Philip Seymour Hoffman Type.” Part of Hoffman’s story is the quasi rags to riches story of a character actor becoming a leading man. Everyone loves a comeback story. Putting money on the dark horse. Zero to hero. Though Hoffman’s Best Actor Oscar win for Capote was nothing short of a triumph for all the schlubby character actors out there, that win felt more like a recognition for his tremendous body of work and how Hoffman essentially made himself undeniable.

Compiling roles in my head for this paean, I was overcome by the experience of watching Hoffman’s roles in real time. Growing up in Tornado Alley, Twister was a BIG DEAL, and for YEARS he was simply “that guy from Twister” anytime he popped up in the background of some movie. I remember watching a pilfered copy of Boogie Nights that had been dubbed on one of those incredibly high tech two-deck VCRs because, uh, I was a teenage boy and aware of the movie’s reputation and like the time I watched my mom’s Sex and the City tapes, I ended up getting sucked into the story. I remember seeing The Savages at an arthouse theater in a dead mall with an ex-girlfriend in that phase where we were trying to be just friends and being so emotionally uncomfortable in that situation, fully investing in that now underseen but quite excellent movie. And then there’s walking out of Synecdoche, New York in tears with snow falling and a bunch of people dressed up in Santa suits jogging by on the sidewalk as some sort of Christmas fun run. That’s what I think about when I think about Philip Seymour Hoffman. 

I didn’t even mention how much I love his turn as pioneering music journalist Lester Bangs in Almost Famous or how I feel like it’s a crying shame the role he won for was Capote since actors winning Oscars for cosplaying in biopics is just a step above a participation trophy (and it goes without saying that Hoffman’s Truman Capote cosplay is exquisite). I only mentioned his role in The Master once and in all honesty I could have written this whole thing about that one performance because it will always and forever be tattooed on my movie nerd heart. But honestly, almost all of Hoffman’s roles are tattooed on the heart caliber. The sympathetic hospice nurse in Magnolia. The shady priest in Doubt. The list would require a book to properly sing Hoffman’s praises. The main thing is, it didn’t matter how big or small the role was, whether he was supporting or in the lead, Philip Seymor Hoffman always made his presence felt, and his absence is still felt today.