“It was an incredibly honest, unique, specific and personal story of addiction. He lives to feed the beast and it gets him farther away from reality, intimacy and life. To me, it’s not even about gambling. It’s about a man and how he behaves in this pressurized world he has created for himself. There is no relief for this guy. It’s about a man who cuts off his feelings at the same time his girlfriend [Minnie Driver] comes at him harder. Life comes at him harder, too, but he can only think about his addiction.” — Phillip Seymour Hoffman on his role in Owning Mahowny.
As long as I’ve posted the above, here are some other PSH morsels:
“Success isn’t what makes you happy. It really isn’t. Success is doing what makes you happy and doing good work and hopefully having a fruitful life. If I’ve felt like I’ve done good work, that makes me happy. The success part of it is all gravy.”
“Sometimes I’m working on a film and someone will ask me if I’m having fun. And I’m tempted to tell them the truth: No, absolutely not. Having no fun here at all. You know what’s going to be fun? When it’s done, and I’ve done a fuckin’ good job, and I know people are getting something out of that. I’ll have a lot of fun then. A ton of it.”
“Other people disagree with me, but Scent of a Woman really was my breakthrough. I was working in the prepared foods section of a deli when I was cast in that movie, and I’ve never had a non-acting job since. That’s amazing. Not only couldn’t I [not] get a job as an actor, I couldn’t hold down the temporary non-acting jobs I managed to get. I got fired as a waiter in restaurants and as a lifeguard at a spa. If I hadn’t gotten into Scent of a Woman, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It’s been a domino effect ever since”
“Being unemployed is not good for any actor, no matter how successful you are. You always remember what it feels like to go to the unemployment office, what it feels like to be fired from all those restaurants”.
“Actors are responsible to the people we play. I don’t label or judge. I just play them as honestly and expressively and creatively as I can, in the hope that people who ordinarily turn their heads in disgust instead think, ‘What I thought I’d feel about that guy, I don’t totally feel right now’.”
“To have that concentration to act well is like lugging things up staircases in your brain. I think that’s a thing people don’t understand. It is that exhausting. If you’re doing it well, if you’re concentrating the way you need to, if your will and your concentration and emotional and imagination and emotional life are all in tune, concentrated and working together in that role…that is just like lugging weights upstairs with your head..And I don’t think that should get any easier.”
“A lot of people describe me as chubby, which seems so easy, so first-choice. Or stocky. Fair-skinned. Tow-headed. There are so many other choices. How about dense? I mean, I’m a thick kind of guy. But I’m never described in attractive ways. I’m waiting for somebody to say I’m at least cute. But nobody has.”
