Philip Seymour Hoffman: The sweaty, stuttering genius

I watched Synecdoche, New York recently and came to a realization: This man is one of the greatest actors we were ever handed.

Well, it wasn't that sudden. I'd seen him give a quality performance every time I watched a movie he appeared in, and my anticipation for seeing his name in the cast increased with each instance. The Big Lebowski, Punch-Drunk-Love, Happiness, Twister, Almost Famous, hell The Hunger Games franchise are just a few of the films that were instantly made better by him being in them.

So what is it about Synecdoche, New York in particular that made me officially become a superfan of his?

First of all, it's his ability to revel in self-mockery. Caden Cotard goes through sheer hell, and some scenes will make you insanely uncomfortable... And yet, Hoffman plunges himself into the role with such headfirst enthusiasm it's impossible not to find his predicament extremely humorous at the same time. He's a fearless professional diver, the guy who loves making you as uncomfortable as humanly possible.

Conversely, playing even the most unbelievable, bizarre situations with complete earnestness also makes it just as easy to feel sympathy for him. If you did happen to share this particular surrealistic life with seemingly no sense of order or reasoning (At least that he's aware of), how would you react? How would it feel to constantly live in a dream which alternates between being beautiful and an inescapable nightmare you have no way of controlling?

One method he has of achieving this is communicating intense nervousness. Either through stuttering or uncertain, confused looks you find yourself in the place of his character very easily. You can practically feel the sweat running down his cheek, even when he isn't actually sweating.

Another trick is the elongated pauses. You wait in anticipation, giving weight to each sentence, making it feel like every word matters. And sometimes he doesn't need to say anything at all for you to understand the anguish that he's going through.

Most of all though, his characters always feel like someone you could encounter in real life. I'm perfectly fine with cartoon personalities, they can be extremely entertaining (And still contain a degree of truthfulness). But Hoffman keeps it real at every turn, and that's what makes him such an exceptionally distinctive talent.

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Very well said.

He was the best actor of his generation and I still remember how shook (and sad, for several days afterwards) I was when I found out he had passed away.