Top 100 Philip Seymour Quotes
#1. As an actor, I really like Philip Seymour Hoffman. I think he's a genius.
Simon Cowell
#2. There's lots of incredible roles out there that I'd love to tackle, but there's a select group of actors I find myself gravitating towards, like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Sean Penn or Daniel Day-Lewis - real transformational actors.
Derek Magyar
#3. I always wanted to be an actor, but my top three favorite actors of all time are Al Pacino, James Dean and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Dane DeHaan
#4. I love 'Capote.' Huge fan of Philip Seymour Hoffman; if he's not my all-time favorite actor he's definitely in my top five. I just love him so much.
Chris Pratt
#5. The actors I respect are the ones who see it as a career and manage to live reasonably normal lives, like Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Max Irons
#6. When I was starting out, I thought I would go into comedy and there would be a mentor, like the Philip Seymour Hoffman character in 'Almost Famous,' in my life, and there just wasn't. It was really frustrating for me because I desired that so much.
Mike Birbiglia
#7. My heroes are Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman. Those are the two actors that both do comedies and dramas, seamlessly. Also John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman. They're all just great actors, neither comedic nor dramatic. They're just great actors.
Jonah Hill
#8. A lot of deaths feel sad. Philip Seymour Hoffman's feels like a robbery.
James Poniewozik
#9. I like to try to change things up a bit in the way that actors such as Philip Seymour Hoffman or Michael Fassbender did and do.
Richard Madden
#10. Guys like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Sam Rockwell are the guys I look up to and have the kind of career I'd like to emulate.
Justin Long
#11. My focus is to grow, have fun, and work with people who inspire me, like Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Jesse Plemons
#12. If you look at the careers of Philip Seymour Hoffmann, Paul Giamatti, Meryl Streep, none of them shot up in terms of fame or fortune or recognition, they laid a platform of good, solid work and became better and better.
Max Irons
#13. I'm currently working on a romantic comedy between me and Philip Seymour Hoffman. So my next step is to write something so mind-blowingly spectacular that he has no other choice but to agree to do it! Wish me luck.
Haley Webb
#14. There are characters in movies who I call 'film characters.' They don't exist in real life. They exist to play out a scenario. They can be in fantastic films, but they are not real characters; what happens to them is not lifelike.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#15. I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they're beautiful and famous and rich. I'm like, 'Oh my God, I'd be dead.'
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#16. In life, do you ever really know if you're missing an opportunity? No, you really don't.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#17. There are a lot of things going on with my life right now that don't just have to do with career. So I have a hard time making decisions about work. That's really a luxury problem.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#19. It's hard for anybody who works a lot and has children. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#20. If you're a human being walking the earth, you're weird, you're strange, you're psychologically challenged.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#21. Films are always a fiction, not documentary. Even a documentary is a kind of fiction.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#23. If you get a chance to act in a room that somebody else has paid rent for, then you're given a free chance to practice your craft.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#24. Bob Glaudini, the writer, he's a wonderfully talented man and all his plays and his screenplays, they all have sense of something bigger, even though you're looking at something very simple.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#25. If all people are encouraged to actually see who they're coexisting with, or even if they're not coexisting with other people.It's like to look at the world you're in.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#28. I have three children and I think I'm happy when I'm with them and they're okay. When I see them enjoying each other in front of me, and then they let me enjoy them in turn. That brings a feeling which I would say is happiness.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#29. I've had to make the transition from sweeping in for 15 minutes, doing my stuff and clearing out, to carrying a movie for the duration - in a dress.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#31. Well, in the theater, I think you're actually more responsible for what is going on onstage as a director than you are in film.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#32. You know the circus performer who spins the plates in the air you know, and he'll spin six or seven plates in the air? Acting sometimes is kind of that guy spinning all those plates in the air but in your head and in your body.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#35. I have an awful memory, and I have a great memory. Meaning that, if I'm trying to remember something, I can't remember it. But my recall is fantastic.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#37. People aren't going to throw the kind of money at certain people that they used to.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#38. People used to be funny about approaching me, but now they seem to think I'm as sane as anyone who's done what I've done in movies can be.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#39. I do feel like all the people I meet, all the people I'm in discussions with, if I'm working with somebody, I sense the same energy that everybody is suffering from the same predicament.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#40. When you have a child, as anyone knows who has them, that's basically all you want to talk about.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#41. When you're playing someone who really lived, you carry a burden, a burden to be accurate. But it's one that you have to let go of ultimately.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#44. My love for the theater has always been a priority. That hasn't changed. I got into acting that way. The film work that came up was really a surprise.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#46. Don't let people treat you like a cigarette, they only use you when they're bored and step on you when they're done. Be like drugs, let them die for you.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#49. A self-awareness moment. All of a sudden everything he has done comes flashing into his mind, a self-criticism that is unbearable.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#50. The ambition, the drive, the wanting to be the center of attention, the wanting to succeed ... They're all inside me somewhere.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#52. I think you should be serious about what you do because this is it. This is the only life you've got.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#53. Film's hard when you don't have any relationship with the director at all and you just show up. Then you really are just a gun for hire.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#55. I think you gotta have an honesty and a humility about human nature and that it's not about you at the end of the day.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#56. I'm probably more personal when I'm acting than at any other time. More open, more direct. Because it allows me to be something that I can't always feel comfortable with when I'm living my own life, you know? Because it's make- believe.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#58. There's things that you don't want to do and they keep haunting you and following you. Bennett Miller directed this project [Capote], who is a friend of mine since I was 16, and Danny Futterman wrote it, and he's also been a friend of mine since I was 16.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#59. Acting's difficult for me because I think you have to be passionately involved in what you're doing.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#60. Sometimes being an actor is like being some kind of detective where you're on the search for a secret that will unlock the character.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#62. For me, acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, that's beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great - well, that's absolutely torturous.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#63. I've seen a lot of friends who have a lot of great projects, whether it's a script or a play or whatever, and it is a great project and they have great people involved, and they can't make it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#65. It's important to say that actors can't act alone, it's impossible. What we have to do is support each other.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#67. I know that obviously, that if you want to get the story, if you want to get close to somebody, if you want to find out what is really the truth or what's really interesting, you have to create a trust between these two things, between the journalist and the subject.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#69. My image of Jesus is someone who is exciting ... Were he alive today, he would be causing havoc!
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#73. Life is short. Time is short. As we get older, time does quicken. It's long, and it's long pertaining to that thought, that the past is not done with you because you can't rid of it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#76. People actually live with their id exposed. They're not good at concealing what's going on inside.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#78. When you become a parent, you look at your parents differently. You look at being a child differently. It's an awakening, a revelation that you have.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#79. The weight comes off, you know? If you stop with the bread and the pie, it really does. It really works.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#80. I didn't go out looking for negative characters; I went out looking for people who have a struggle and a fight to tackle. That's what interests me.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#81. I have a fine level of recognition in the business and among the acting community now, so I consider myself one of the lucky ones. If I didn't think that, there would be something wrong with me. I'm grateful and thankful for what I've got.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#82. I do understand what it is to not want to commit to someone, knowing that might bring pain or commit to a life that has to do with being responsible to people other than myself. These things, I think, are normal things.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#83. Sometimes it's hard to say no. Ultimately, if you stick to your guns, you have the career that you want. Don't get me wrong. I love a good payday and I'll do films for fun. But ultimately my main goal is to do good work. If it doesn't pay well, so be it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#85. Sometimes I'm uncomfortable with the level of fame I've got! It all depends on the day and what's going on. I don't desire any more fame. I don't need it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#87. Being with a kid always takes you to being a kid somehow, and they really are showing me a childhood I might not have had in some way.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#89. When you're acting, you're subjective; when you're a director, you're more objective.You're kind of watching from the outside and helping others, and therefore I learn my mistakes through others, and also my assets through others.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#90. Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It's not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#91. Sometimes I have a great day of filming and sometimes the theater strikes me better. It just depends.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#92. I like to come to the set with very strong ideas and strong opinions about how to do things. And I like also dealing with somebody who's like that.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#93. Ultimately, I think writing is a mixture of craft, inspiration, and being incredibly, courageously explorative with yourself - and being brutally honest, too.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#94. In order for something to be born, something has to die.That's not always, but there is something about that that I find to be true. That is, it's a natural thing.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#95. I think directors should be confident in their leadership capabilities. I think directors should be confident in what they want to do.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#96. The idea that you have a vision of what you're supposed to be, or going to be, or where your kids are going to be - and that that doesn't work out - is always going to be something that's going to affect people and move people.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#97. I think good art, if I could be pretentious enough to say, I think good art deals with the micro to explain the macro.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#98. I always thought I'd be a New York theater actor, riding my bicycle to rehearsal. That was all I ever wanted.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#99. 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.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#100. I think part of why I have so many books around me and why I read every day is because I mythologize the writer. I don't do that with any other artists.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
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