Philip Seymour Hoffman

Philip Seymour Hoffman July 23 1967 February 2 2014 was an American actor director and producer Best known for his distinctive supporting and character rolestypically lowlifes eccentrics bullies and misfitsHoffman acted in many films including leading roles from the early 1990s until his death in 2014 Drawn to theater as a teenager Hoffman studied acting at New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts He began his screen career in a 1991 episode of Law Order and started to appear in films in 1992 He gained recognition for his supporting work notably in Scent of a Woman 1992 Boogie Nights 1997 Happiness 1998 Patch Adams 1998 The Big Lebowski 1998 Magnolia 1999 The Talented Mr Ripley 1999 Almost Famous 2000 PunchDrunk Love 2002 and Along Came Polly 2004 He began to occasionally play leading roles and for his portrayal of the author Truman Capote in Capote 2005 won multiple accolades including the Academy Award for Best Actor Hoffmans profile continued to grow and he received three more Oscar nominations for his supporting work as a brutally frank CIA officer in Charlie Wilsons War 2007 a priest accused of pedophilia in Doubt 2008 and the charismatic leader of a Scientologytype movement in The Master 2012 While he mainly worked in independent films including The Savages 2007 and Synecdoche New York 2008 Hoffman also appeared in Flawless 1999 and Hollywood blockbusters such as Twister 1996 and Mission Impossible III 2006 and in one of his final roles as Plutarch Heavensbee in the Hunger Games series 201315 The feature Jack Goes Boating 2010 marked his debut as a filmmaker Hoffman was also an accomplished theater actor and director He joined the offBroadway LAByrinth Theater Company in 1995 where he directed produced and appeared in numerous stage productions His performances in three Broadway playsTrue West in 2000 Long Days Journey into Night in 2003 and Death of a Salesman in 2012all led to Tony Award nominations