It was really too early for anyone to write such a piece on Phillip Seymour Hoffman, he had so many more years of brilliant acting left in him but alas the man had his demons and they got the best of him in the end. Let that not detract the fact that he was one of the greatest actors we are likely to ever see on screen in our lifetime. A man so engrossed with the characters he played and wholly dedicated to his art that at times he could carry an intensity that scared the living daylight out of you.
As Truman Capote in Capote Hoffman brought forth all the quirks and nuances of the great writer he portrayed. It was to be his only Best Actor win but what a performance, filled with depth and a sense of time/place that is very hard to match in any movie today. He elevated Benneth Miller's movie into an amalgam of fiction, non-fiction, tragedy and repentance. In The Master he fictionalized a Ron L Hubbard type of man and made him humane, caring and understandable. That scene where Hoffman interviews, questions, debates, Pheonix's character is as brilliant as any scene in any movie I've seen in the past few decades. Hoffman could do that.
Those are just examples of his brilliance. The way he took his job so seriously and with such heart, that doesn't come too often in Hollywood. He was a unique talent, an actor for the ages. I always looked forward to his next endeavor and to think it won't happen is a sad thought .