In 2000’s “Almost Famous,” Philip Seymour Hoffman, playing the rock critic Lester Bangs, says, “the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you are uncool.”

I’ve thought about that line a lot over the years. It was the first thing I thought about last Sunday morning when the news of Hoffman’s untimely death reached my woebegone ears. When I was a camp counselor for four summers, I used to repeat that quote to my campers, 14-year olds entering high school, and we’d talk about the ways it rang true—what it meant to be cool in a world filled with rejection and judgment. 

The above line comes at the end of “Almost Famous,” when a young rock journalist—the night before the deadline of his first major Rolling Stone article—calls his mentor and asks for advice. To be fair, they are writer-director Cameron Crowe’s words, but as he did in every single role, Philip Seymour Hoffman made them come alive. 

This past Monday, Cameron Crowe wrote a brief post on his website “The Uncool” about that very moment. 

“When the scene was over, I realized that Hoffman had pulled off a magic trick. He’d leapt over the words and the script, and gone hunting for the soul and compassion of the private Lester, the one only a few of us had ever met.” That was the magic of Philip Seymour Hoffman, arguably the finest screen actor of our generation. It didn’t matter what the scene was about, or what the movie was surrounding him; with Hoffman, you were going to get something honest, some “true currency.”

Maybe I’ve identified with that “Almost Famous” quote so much because in many ways it perfectly encapsulates the feeling you have when watching Philip Seymour Hoffman on screen. Those moments we shared with Hoffman in his films were not always easy to watch. Whether he was bathed in tears of rejection and failure or struggling to exert control in a situation where he obviously had none, Hoffman was an actor that was resolutely human and unapologetically uncool. He held a mirror up to nature, and what we saw was rarely pretty but consistently fascinating.

As major film critic, Matt Zoller Seitz proclaimed earlier this week that “Philip Seymour Hoffman mattered,” and he mattered for a lot of reasons. He was a rare kind of character actor, one that was too emotionally arresting to simply exist in the margins. When Hoffman was on screen, he suddenly became the most important thing in the film. He also mattered because, in a business of glitz and glamour, here was an actor who never looked like a movie star.

This was important not because we as an audience got some self-reassuring pleasure in applauding him, or because he was brave enough to show himself undeterred by his portly frame or thinning hair. Hoffman’s appearance reminded us that at the end of the day, nothing matters more than talent and effort. He never became a staple character type; with age his range grew exponentially. 

He played a bunch of losers with tragic self-consciousness, but also with a kind of dignity that kept them from being simply pathetic. He played a bunch of swindlers who were aware of their own deceitfulness. In the past decade, he’s been part of four of the most iconic and difficult theatrical works of our generation, and for his grace in those roles he received three Tony nominations. He received his Academy Award for Best Actor for his spellbinding work in the 2006 film “Capote.”

Hoffman’s is an inglorious death. It is the sad punctuation to a lifelong struggle of addiction. Having been in and out of rehab in his college years, he had been sober for two decades before a relapse last year that was obviously never fully resolved. He leaves behind a partner of 15 years and three children.

After I heard about the news I called my mother. She and I have always enjoyed talking about actors—who we think is talented, who’s overrated, who’s working too much, who not enough—and for as long as I can remember we’ve cherished our time and moments with Hoffman. She reminded me of his final scene in the 2008 film “Synecdoche, NY,” a film about a regional theater director (played by Hoffman) given a hefty genius grant that allows him to begin a long production about his own life. The film examines the way his art becomes a way of coping with the difficulties of his waking life. It’s an obtuse, eclectic and, at times, impenetrable film—one that would seem all the more opaque were it not for Hoffman’s unrelenting humanity.

In the final moments he wanders through his deserted warehouse of set constructions; all the other actors are either dead or gone. He is quite a bit older now; his hair is all but gone and his makeup suggests a man in his 70s or 80s. It is such tragic irony that we’ll never see him become that age. But I take some solace in rewatching that scene. He rests his head on a stranger’s shoulder and the screen slowly fades to white as he dies. We might hold on to that moment as a more dignified end to Hoffman’s life than the untimely one he endured.

In an interview conducted nearly a decade ago by Alex Papademas, Hoffman said, “There comes a time in every man’s life…when you start to ask yourself: Have I done the great thing I was supposed to do? Am I ever going to do it?” Now we can only imagine what Philip Seymour Hoffman might have done, but we are left with a body of work that goes beyond the realm of great into that of legendary. 

In 2000’s “Almost Famous,” Philip Seymour Hoffman, playing the rock critic Lester Bangs, says, “the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you are uncool.”
I’ve thought about that line a lot over the years. It was the first thing I thought about last Sunday morning when the news of Hoffman’s untimely death reached my woebegone ears. When I was a camp counselor for four summers, I used to repeat that quote to my campers, 14-year olds entering high school, and we’d talk about the ways it rang true—what it meant to be cool in a world filled with rejection and judgment. 
The above line comes at the end of “Almost Famous,” when a young rock journalist—the night before the deadline of his first major Rolling Stone article—calls his mentor and asks for advice. To be fair, they are writer-director Cameron Crowe’s words, but as he did in every single role, Philip Seymour Hoffman made them come alive. 
This past Monday, Cameron Crowe wrote a brief post on his website “The Uncool” about that very moment. 
“When the scene was over, I realized that Hoffman had pulled off a magic trick. He’d leapt over the words and the script, and gone hunting for the soul and compassion of the private Lester, the one only a few of us had ever met.” That was the magic of Philip Seymour Hoffman, arguably the finest screen actor of our generation. It didn’t matter what the scene was about, or what the movie was surrounding him; with Hoffman, you were going to get something honest, some “true currency.”
Maybe I’ve identified with that “Almost Famous” quote so much because in many ways it perfectly encapsulates the feeling you have when watching Philip Seymour Hoffman on screen. Those moments we shared with Hoffman in his films were not always easy to watch. Whether he was bathed in tears of rejection and failure or struggling to exert control in a situation where he obviously had none, Hoffman was an actor that was resolutely human and unapologetically uncool. He held a mirror up to nature, and what we saw was rarely pretty but consistently fascinating.
As major film critic, Matt Zoller Seitz proclaimed earlier this week that “Philip Seymour Hoffman mattered,” and he mattered for a lot of reasons. He was a rare kind of character actor, one that was too emotionally arresting to simply exist in the margins. When Hoffman was on screen, he suddenly became the most important thing in the film. He also mattered because, in a business of glitz and glamour, here was an actor who never looked like a movie star.
This was important not because we as an audience got some self-reassuring pleasure in applauding him, or because he was brave enough to show himself undeterred by his portly frame or thinning hair. Hoffman’s appearance reminded us that at the end of the day, nothing matters more than talent and effort. He never became a staple character type; with age his range grew exponentially. 
He played a bunch of losers with tragic self-consciousness, but also with a kind of dignity that kept them from being simply pathetic. He played a bunch of swindlers who were aware of their own deceitfulness. In the past decade, he’s been part of four of the most iconic and difficult theatrical works of our generation, and for his grace in those roles he received three Tony nominations. He received his Academy Award for Best Actor for his spellbinding work in the 2006 film “Capote.”
Hoffman’s is an inglorious death. It is the sad punctuation to a lifelong struggle of addiction. Having been in and out of rehab in his college years, he had been sober for two decades before a relapse last year that was obviously never fully resolved. He leaves behind a partner of 15 years and three children.
After I heard about the news I called my mother. She and I have always enjoyed talking about actors—who we think is talented, who’s overrated, who’s working too much, who not enough—and for as long as I can remember we’ve cherished our time and moments with Hoffman. She reminded me of his final scene in the 2008 film “Synecdoche, NY,” a film about a regional theater director (played by Hoffman) given a hefty genius grant that allows him to begin a long production about his own life. The film examines the way his art becomes a way of coping with the difficulties of his waking life. It’s an obtuse, eclectic and, at times, impenetrable film—one that would seem all the more opaque were it not for Hoffman’s unrelenting humanity.
In the final moments he wanders through his deserted warehouse of set constructions; all the other actors are either dead or gone. He is quite a bit older now; his hair is all but gone and his makeup suggests a man in his 70s or 80s. It is such tragic irony that we’ll never see him become that age. But I take some solace in rewatching that scene. He rests his head on a stranger’s shoulder and the screen slowly fades to white as he dies. We might hold on to that moment as a more dignified end to Hoffman’s life than the untimely one he endured.
In an interview conducted nearly a decade ago by Alex Papademas, Hoffman said, “There comes a time in every man’s life…when you start to ask yourself: Have I done the great thing I was supposed to do? Am I ever going to do it?” Now we can only imagine what Philip Seymour Hoffman might have done, but we are left with a body of work that goes beyond the realm of great into that of legendary.