A Quote by Philip Seymour Hoffman

I've worked with a lot of characters that are unhinged. I've played characters that are unhinged. That's, like, my job. — © Philip Seymour Hoffman
I've worked with a lot of characters that are unhinged. I've played characters that are unhinged. That's, like, my job.
I recognize a lot of the things I'm going through. Like, I lose my temper a lot and I become unhinged and kind of hysterical.
I'm grateful that so many viewers have related to characters I've played. I think many in the audience see themselves in my characters or feel like the characters are similar to their friends or sisters.
The nature of acting is that one is many characters and jumps from one skin to another as a way of life. Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what all of your characters think at the same time. Sometimes one of my characters overrules one of my other characters. I'm trying to get them all to harmonize. It's a hell of a job. It's like driving a coach.
I think a few of my most visible roles are crazy or peppy girls, but I've played a lot of characters who are soldiers, or fighters, or meditative characters, and a lot of this stuff hasn't come out.
I had played many gay characters before, but they were finite - guest characters in TV shows or characters in plays.
When I look at my body of work, I've played a lot of characters who are morally conflicted - 'I'm right, no I'm wrong, I don't know what to do!' I want to play more characters who don't care as much, and who aren't as measured. They are what they are, no apologies.
A radio play actually ended up being the first acting job I ever had. A lot of times when I'm on camera, I'm playing characters that are more like myself, and I don't get to do a lot of real character work. But when you're doing animation, you are the very epitome of colorful characters. I think I'm just really into make believe.
I hope it's not all I'll ever do, but I know I've played enigmatic characters. For me, the good characters are people who get places, are devious, are cunning and tricky and hard to pin down. Obviously, if you play one and you do an okay job of it, that'll be on people's minds.
I like complex characters. I've been very, very lucky to portray, in these past three years, characters that are strong and fragile at the same time. It's those characters that I'm looking for. In the last year and half I played three different religions, and that allowed me to educate myself so much.
I love playing women, and I think that this is a throughline to a lot of the characters I've played - they all have this aspect of being wronged. And I think, a lot of the time, the characters are actually wronged by themselves, and they find someone else to blame it on.
I think there's a lack of really, really good funny scripts out there that work on all the levels that they're supposed to - which is to say that they're not just funny but they have interesting characters that people are going to like and be invested in. I've done a bunch of movies that haven't worked but I like to think I've done some that have worked and that's because not only is the comedy there but the characters and storylines are interesting. The characters are real and relateable and people were invested in them.
With all of the characters I've played, I feel like I've tried to communicate through my eyes and face, as much or more than with words. That's something that I like to watch in films, and something that I like to bring to the characters that I play.
I like to be unhinged; I like to be unpredictable. I like to make people worry that worse things can happen whenever I go out to a restaurant or act in a movie.
To me idealized characters are so boring to play, especially having grown up in the classical theater. That's a great experience, but as a woman, especially, you've played a lot of idealized characters. So when you've got someone who has weaknesses as well as strengths, that's interesting.
I think, the first time I played Iago at the Public Theater, I realized I had a - much to my chagrin - I realized I had an instinct for these conflicted characters, for these torn characters, for these characters who could be described as evil. I wouldn't describe them that way.
Ideas have unhinged the gates of empires.
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