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The Movie That Made Phillip Seymour Hoffman a Star

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Phillip Seymour Hoffman had been getting good notices for quite some time before he made Charlie Wilson's War.

He'd been in Boogie Nights and The Big Lebowski in memorable roles. And shortly before he did Charlie Wilson's War, he won the Best Actor Oscar for a letter perfect impression of twee gay writer Truman Capote in a movie hardly anyone saw.

But in Charlie Wilson's War, Hoffman(thanks to that Oscar) was up there above the marquee with two bonafide superstars -- Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts -- and stealing the movie from both of them.

Irony: Charlie Wilson's War got Hoffman another Oscar nomination. Best SUPPORTING Actor. Its as if he got dropped right back down to the character ranks. But now he would be a GREAT supporting actor. A character star.

The reason that Hoffman got nominated for Charlie Wilson's War is the old bromide: the acting doesn't win the Oscar(or the nomination)...the character does.

And Hoffman finally got, in Charlie Wilson's War, a dynamic, charismatic, exciting and cool character to play. Credit the Aaron Sorkin script with its usual emphasis on intelligent arguing and insults, but Hoffman milked that deep, snarky deadpan voice he could use to maximum impact here.

Hoffman enters the movie magnificently, as a CIA tough guy called on the carpet by his "poncey boy" boss (John Slattery, just starting Mad Men and with a tinge of orange in his white hair ) to apologize.

Hoffman's reply(and first lines on screen): "Excuse me, what the f--k?"

Hoffman -- big gut hanging out but still cool and macho -- continues to dismantle Slattery line by line:

"By the way, water goes UNDER a bridge and OVER a dam, you poncey schoolboy..."

"(To:I won't dignify that question with an answer) You're dignifying Roger's fiancée in the ass at the Jefferson Hotel, but let's just let that go..."

(To: "You're coarse") Excuse me?

"I'd like to take a moment to list the ways in which you are a douchebag."

(About an entering workman) "I...I don't even know what this f'in guy is doing here."

..and then smashing Slattery's newly replaced window that he smashed before.

So spectacular is Hoffman's entrance that you can't wait for him to finally meet up with skirt-chasing Congressman Tom Hanks(with a good, well-written role of his own to play, just not with the fireworks of Hoffman), for the two men to size each other up("Well, I may not be James Bond, but you aren't exactly Thomas Jefferson, so we're even"), and to become grudging allies and eventual friends. Charlie Wilson's War is a buddy movie with a Julia Roberts cameo(though SHE gets one fun scene with Hoffman too, in which his overweight character proposes sleeping with him and you realize -- no, he won't get Roberts , but yes, he probably has gotten others.)

Hoffman's character is so fun and macho in Charlie Wilson's War that his work in Boogie Nights and The Big Lebowski suddenly looks almost weightless: THOSE guys were plump wimps and pompous jerks. THIS guy is cool.

And -- rather like Billy Bob Thornton's badass after Bad Santa -- Hoffman carried his "Charlie Wilson's War" characterization with him into his later roles. The George Clooney political movie, Moneyball(also partially by Aaron Sorkin), right up to the guy he played in The Hunger Games. Too bad we lost him. He could have done Gust Avacados forever.

[–] BourbonKing (5777) 6 years ago

Hoffman's profile was big in the late 90s well before Charlie Wilson's War. You say nobody saw "Capote" but you're obviously wrong since it won him an Oscar and stamped his name among the elites. I liked him in this movie as well, but it didn't make him a star since he already was one.

[–] rudeboymurray (3271) 5 years ago

This.

Even discounting the memorable roles which had made him a noted character actor since the late '90s (Boogie Nights, Happiness, Magnolia, The Talented Mr. Ripley etc) he had been the lead in several well-received, if not exactly box-office shattering, films prior to his Oscar win. I am particularly fond of Owning Mahowny, one of his best performances and an underrated film.

Charlie Wilson's War won him over the title billing alongside Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, which is notable to be sure, but I cannot agree that this is the role that made him a star. He's easily the best thing about the film, though.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

OK. You have changed my mind....to the point where I will apologize a little.

I'll change course and say that this is my favorite character of his -- he has that "low deadpan voice" thing down to perfection, and he projects a macho swagger that wasn't allowed to him in (to name four) in Twister, The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia. I'll grant you he has some of that swagger in "Punch Drunk Love" and "Before the Devil Knows Your Dead", but not as "fun" as he is here, courtesy of Aaron Sorkin's script and Tom Hanks as a partner(with Julia Roberts getting one funny scene with him as well.) For the precious few years that he worked after "Charlie Wilson's War," Hoffman had this persona to work with (much as, noted above, Billy Bob Thornton used his "Bad Santa" persona in many movies thereafter.)

PS. Another problem for me is that I haven't seen every Hoffman movie, and that includes Owning Mahoney and if that one has him closer to his Charlie Wilson's War character, again...I apologize. But I certainly felt that Gust had more charisma than the guys in Twister, Lebowski, Boogie Nights. The guy in Magnolia is a much more nice and sympathetic character, a different person entirely from Gust. But not as "fun." Not as movie starr-ish.

[–] TheArgentinian (7069) a year ago

PSH was well known and respected by 2007.