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The hectic shooting schedules of Flawless and Magnolia only compounded his stress. Hoffman was all but flight-certified in the fall of '98 after shuttling back and forth between New York for Flawless and Rome for Minghella's lavish Ripley, based on the 1955 Patricia Highsmith chiller about a mysterious traveler who sweeps into the lives of rich American kids in 1950s Europe. In Italy, Hoffman had to ditch the affected voice and dress of Flawless to play the ugly American who first suspects sinister things of the titular Tom Ripley (Matt Damon).
"Matt, Jude, and Gwyneth did all the work," Hoffman says of the months in Rome. "Cate [Blanchett] and I only worked like once a week. So we just tooled around and ate at a different restaurant every night. The other guys wanted to kill us."
After wrapping both projects in December, he flew to L.A. to play Magnolia's dumpy nurse, crashing at Anderson's house and trading cigarettes and stories until the flick (a Nashville-esque meditation on isolated, damaged Los Angelenos) wrapped. He then slimmed down considerably to play the romantic lead, a screenwriter, in David Mamet's latest film, the comedy State and Main.
"When I'm not working I go down the drain," says the Fairport, N.Y., native. Raised by his mother, a civil rights activist, he took up acting in high school--like so many before him--in order to impress girls. Hoffman studied theater at New York University, still lives in Manhattan (he's single), and continues to do stage work when he isn't filming; he directed his first play earlier this year with the Labyrinth Theater Company. Says Hoffman, "I get really depressed if I'm not focused on the thing I love."
And Hollywood is loving him back. "Phil does these things on screen that make you flip out--weird twitches, movements, accidents, stutters," raves Anderson, who says he wrote the nurse in Magnolia with Hoffman in mind. "And you guys are f - - - in' onto it! I know it. I know you're gonna say the right thing, which is, Hey! The jackass character-actor guy is now a lead actor!"
Couldn't have said it better ourselves.
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