Cooper Hoffman, son of the Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, has opened up about missing his father as his own acting career takes off.
Now 22, Cooper was just 10 years old when his father died in 2014 from an apparent drug overdose at 46. He didn’t make his screen debut until seven years later in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (2021).
Earlier this year, he made his off-Broadway debut in Curse of the Starving Class. “I was like, I’m so ill-prepared for this,” Hoffman admitted to GQ in a new interview. “The only person I really wanted to talk to was my dad.”
He continued: “He’s my favorite actor, but he’s also my dad. He’s also not here. A lot of people idolize their parents because they’re great parents. It’s a different thing to idolize your parent because you love their art.”
Philip appeared in numerous critically acclaimed films and TV shows before his untimely death. He is known for playing Head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee in the final three Hunger Games movies, a cult leader in The Master, and novelist Truman Capote in Bennett Miller’s 2005 biopic.
“So as much as I would love him to be here and talk to him about acting, I also would be terrified to have him see my stuff and judge my stuff,” Hoffman admitted. “Not that he would judge it, because he was a very empathetic person, and he would probably — hopefully — hold my hand through all of it.
“I get to figure this out on my own. But also, I would love his advice. And I would also just love my dad,” he added poignantly.
Hoffman’s new role in The Long Walk, an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1979 horror sci-fi novel, particularly hits home. He stars as the main protagonist, Raymond Garraty, whose father also died.
Asked if he had any apprehension toward the role, he said: “Oh my God, how can you not? How can you not see in bold letters, ‘HIS DAD DIED’? It’s just going to be there.”
The similarities were almost too much that he said he almost turned down the project.
“When you experience death at a young age, you think that you’ve experienced everything in life,” Hoffman noted. “And then you haven’t.”
He eventually came around to the movie, realizing it could be healing not only for him, but for those who’ve also experienced a similar loss.
“When your trauma is on display for the world, there’s no actually hiding it,” Hoffman said. “I’m like, ‘I might as well talk about it,’ or, ‘I might as well put it into something.’ Because if I keep hiding it and running from it, that’s not fair to anyone else who has gone through that. I’m here to display this person and this experience as honestly as I can, and hopefully someone else watches it and goes, ‘He sees me, he understands me.’ And that’s, in my opinion, the only reason to do any sort of art.”
The Long Walk, about a group of young teenage boys forced to participate in a deadly high-stakes contest where they must continuously walk or face execution by their military escort, also stars Mark Hamill, Ben Wang (Karate Kid: Legends), and Industry’s David Jonsson.
It will be released in theaters September 12.
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