10 Things You Didn’t Know About Philip Seymour Hoffman!

2

9. A career in films wasn’t always Hoffman’s dream – it was wrestling. He began acting in high school after a neck injury forced him to give up wrestling.

3

8. Hoffman earned a BFA in drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. While at NYU, he founded the Bullstoi Ensemble theatre company with actor Steven Schub and director Bennett Miller.

4

7. The “Doubt” actor taught an advanced “Directing the Actor” class for one semester at Columbia University School of the Arts Graduate Film Division in 2003.

5

6. When asked who his acting idols were, Hoffman named Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Newman, Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken.

6

5. The “Charlie Wilson’s War” star’s first role was as a defendant in a rape case in “Law & Order.”

7

4. As a stage performer, Hoffman earned three Tony nominations for Best Actor in “True West,” “Death of a Salesman” and “Long Day’s Journey into Night.”

8

3. Hoffman’s mother took him to see local theatre productions when he was growing up. He was especially moved by the play “All My Sons,” which he saw when he was 12. “When I saw All My Sons, I was changed—permanently, changed—by that experience. It was like a miracle to me,” he later told The New York Times.

9

2. Playing famed writer Truman Capote in the film “Capote” wasn’t easy! “Playing Capote took a lot of concentration. I prepared for four and a half months. I read and listened to his voice and watched videos of him on TV,” Hoffman told The New York Times.

10

1. Hoffman made his film breakthrough in 1992 when he appeared in four feature films including “Scent of a Woman” where he played an unscrupulous classmate of Chris O’Donnell’s character. Prior to this, he had been working as a deli clerk at a city grocery store.

Cate

Cate has a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature and has been the Managing Editor of Fame10 for more than 6 years. Despite having a love for the works of Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy and Lord Byron, she also has an intense fascination with pop culture. When she isn’t writing for Fame10, she’s planning her next big adventure in Southeast Asia.