Philip Seymour Quotes & Sayings

If all people are encouraged to actually see who they're coexisting with, or even if they're not coexisting with other people.It's like to look at the world you're in. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

The strange thing is I never thought I'd do films, — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Actors are responsible to the people we play. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

When you have a child, as anyone knows who has them, that's basically all you want to talk about. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

When you become a parent, you look at your parents differently. You look at being a child differently. It's an awakening, a revelation that you have. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

There's lots of incredible roles out there that I'd love to tackle, but there's a select group of actors I find myself gravitating towards, like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Sean Penn or Daniel Day-Lewis - real transformational actors. — Derek Magyar

People used to be funny about approaching me, but now they seem to think I'm as sane as anyone who's done what I've done in movies can be. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

There is no pleasure that I haven't made myself sick on. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Sometimes being an actor is like being some kind of detective where you're on the search for a secret that will unlock the character. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

When you're playing someone who really lived, you carry a burden, a burden to be accurate. But it's one that you have to let go of ultimately. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

To have that concentration to act well is like lugging things up staircases in your brain. I think that's a thing people don't understand. It is that exhausting. If you're doing it well, if you're concentrating the way you need to, if your will and your concentration and emotional and imagination and emotional life are all in tune, concentrated and working together in that role, that is just like lugging weights upstairs with your head ... And I don't think that should get any easier. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I've grown to really love musicals, you know? — Philip Seymour Hoffman

My mum's name is Marilyn O'Connor. She's here tonight and I would like if you see her for you to congratulate her because she brought up four kids alone and she deserves congratulations for that. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

My image of Jesus is someone who is exciting ... Were he alive today, he would be causing havoc! — Philip Seymour Hoffman

When you're acting, you're subjective; when you're a director, you're more objective.You're kind of watching from the outside and helping others, and therefore I learn my mistakes through others, and also my assets through others. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I think good art, if I could be pretentious enough to say, I think good art deals with the micro to explain the macro. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I'm probably more personal when I'm acting than at any other time. More open, more direct. Because it allows me to be something that I can't always feel comfortable with when I'm living my own life, you know? Because it's make- believe. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I do feel like all the people I meet, all the people I'm in discussions with, if I'm working with somebody, I sense the same energy that everybody is suffering from the same predicament. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

As an actor, I really like Philip Seymour Hoffman. I think he's a genius. — Simon Cowell

There is no pleasure that I haven't actually made myself sick on. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Vanity is something that will only get in the way of doing your best work, and ultimately if you're truly vain you care more about your work than how you look in your work. I actually consider myself a pretty vain guy when it comes to that. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I had insecurities and fears like everybody does, and I got over it. But I was interested in the parts of me that struggled with those things. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

You know the circus performer who spins the plates in the air you know, and he'll spin six or seven plates in the air? Acting sometimes is kind of that guy spinning all those plates in the air but in your head and in your body. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Bob Glaudini, the writer, he's a wonderfully talented man and all his plays and his screenplays, they all have sense of something bigger, even though you're looking at something very simple. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Plays never feel like the right thing to do at the time. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I have a fine level of recognition in the business and among the acting community now, so I consider myself one of the lucky ones. If I didn't think that, there would be something wrong with me. I'm grateful and thankful for what I've got. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I didn't go out looking for negative characters; I went out looking for people who have a struggle and a fight to tackle. That's what interests me. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

There's nothing risky in talking about your personal life. People do it all the time. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I always thought I'd be a New York theater actor, riding my bicycle to rehearsal. That was all I ever wanted. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Good work is the only thing that would make me feel jealous or envious. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Being with a kid always takes you to being a kid somehow, and they really are showing me a childhood I might not have had in some way. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I like to try to change things up a bit in the way that actors such as Philip Seymour Hoffman or Michael Fassbender did and do. — Richard Madden

Life's pretty funny when you're objectively on the outside looking at it. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I try to live my life in such a way that I don't have any regrets. That's probably why I work so much. I don't want to feel I missed something important. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I know that obviously, that if you want to get the story, if you want to get close to somebody, if you want to find out what is really the truth or what's really interesting, you have to create a trust between these two things, between the journalist and the subject. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Sometimes it's hard to say no. Ultimately, if you stick to your guns, you have the career that you want. Don't get me wrong. I love a good payday and I'll do films for fun. But ultimately my main goal is to do good work. If it doesn't pay well, so be it. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

You can look at anything as a cult. Churches are cults in their own way. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Sometimes I take a temperature of things just because everyone else does. Especially when I'm doing a play. I want to know what people are thinking, positive or negative. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I don't get nervous when I'm directing a play. It's not like acting. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

The film is made in the editing room. The shooting of the film is about shopping, almost. It's like going to get all the ingredients together, and you've got to make sure before you leave the store that you got all the ingredients. And then you take those ingredients and you can make a good cake - or not. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Ultimately what I'll do next is up in the air for me. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

My favorite thing about acting is being alone and going through the scripts and working on it and getting ideas and asking myself questions, looking outside myself for them and researching and getting to the bottom of something and being creative with it as an actor and how to express it in a creative fashion. That's my favorite part. And, the actual acting of it. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Why you do something is always kind of a mystery to me. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I love 'Capote.' Huge fan of Philip Seymour Hoffman; if he's not my all-time favorite actor he's definitely in my top five. I just love him so much. — Chris Pratt

The size of my head though is pretty abnormal. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

There's things that you don't want to do and they keep haunting you and following you. Bennett Miller directed this project [Capote], who is a friend of mine since I was 16, and Danny Futterman wrote it, and he's also been a friend of mine since I was 16. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

The drama nerd comes out in me when I'm in a theater. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

A lot of deaths feel sad. Philip Seymour Hoffman's feels like a robbery. — James Poniewozik

People aren't going to throw the kind of money at certain people that they used to. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

There are characters in movies who I call 'film characters.' They don't exist in real life. They exist to play out a scenario. They can be in fantastic films, but they are not real characters; what happens to them is not lifelike. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

You have to understand that crew members make movies so they're seeing a lot of actors all the time in their career acting. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I think part of why I have so many books around me and why I read every day is because I mythologize the writer. I don't do that with any other artists. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Life is short. Time is short. As we get older, time does quicken. It's long, and it's long pertaining to that thought, that the past is not done with you because you can't rid of it. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It's not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I got into plays in high school then I ended up going to college for it. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Learning how to die is therefore learning how to live, — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Yeah, writers do hate writing. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Don't let people treat you like a cigarette, they only use you when they're bored and step on you when they're done. Be like drugs, let them die for you. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I had a father who was a traveling salesman. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Sometimes I have a great day of filming and sometimes the theater strikes me better. It just depends. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

It's important to say that actors can't act alone, it's impossible. What we have to do is support each other. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

If I'm directing actors, I learn about acting that way. If I'm acting, I learn about directing that way. Producing is just something that's come about because there's projects I find interesting that I would like to help get done. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I don't have a specific thing I want anyone to get out of anything I do. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

If you get a chance to act in a room that somebody else has paid rent for, then you're given a free chance to practice your craft. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I feel like the need to want to create and make something is stronger than the difficulties are going through. — 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 think Magnolia is one of the best films I've ever seen and I can say that straight and out and anybody that disagrees with me I'll fight you to the death. I just think it is one of the greatest films I've ever been in and ever seen. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Guys like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Sam Rockwell are the guys I look up to and have the kind of career I'd like to emulate. — Justin Long

His intuition was luminous from the instant you met him. So was his intelligence. A lot of actors act intelligent, but Philip was the real thing: a shining, artistic polymath with an intelligence that came at you like a pair of headlights and enveloped you from the moment he grabbed your hand, put a huge arm round your neck and shoved a cheek against yours; or if the mood took him, hugged you to him like a big, pudgy schoolboy, then stood and beamed at you while he took stock of the effect. (About Philip Seymour Hoffman) — John Le Carre

I think therapy is a helpful thing. I think everyone knows it. You do it for your life, you do it for yourself, because you want to explore some things, and get at the bottom of some things. It's about your life, the quality of your life. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Actors are investigators. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I didn't have any idea that I would be able to have a career in film. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Films are always a fiction, not documentary. Even a documentary is a kind of fiction. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

When people don't know who you are, they're seeing your work for the first time. But if they've seen a lot, getting certain things across is a more difficult. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

People actually live with their id exposed. They're not good at concealing what's going on inside. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

The idea that you have a vision of what you're supposed to be, or going to be, or where your kids are going to be - and that that doesn't work out - is always going to be something that's going to affect people and move people. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

To be fair to my dad, he is one of the brightest men I've ever met. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I have three children and I think I'm happy when I'm with them and they're okay. When I see them enjoying each other in front of me, and then they let me enjoy them in turn. That brings a feeling which I would say is happiness. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they're beautiful and famous and rich. I'm like, 'Oh my God, I'd be dead.' — Philip Seymour Hoffman

To be loved, I think, is the thing that gets you up in the morning. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

If I don't feel like I'm doing the job well, and I don't know how to get there, or I'm too scared, or whatever, I'm not a happy guy and I'm not pleasant. I'm not pleasant to be around. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

When I was starting out, I thought I would go into comedy and there would be a mentor, like the Philip Seymour Hoffman character in 'Almost Famous,' in my life, and there just wasn't. It was really frustrating for me because I desired that so much. — Mike Birbiglia

I have an awful memory, and I have a great memory. Meaning that, if I'm trying to remember something, I can't remember it. But my recall is fantastic. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

You have to have a personal connection. You have to really want to do it, because if you don't, investing yourself personally, your thoughts, your emotions, yourself into a part, is something you're not going to want to do as much. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

There are a lot of things going on with my life right now that don't just have to do with career. So I have a hard time making decisions about work. That's really a luxury problem. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

You have all the influence you choose to have. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I've had to make the transition from sweeping in for 15 minutes, doing my stuff and clearing out, to carrying a movie for the duration - in a dress. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

We really enjoy that, having a relationship with writers, developing material and getting a director, actors, that we have kind of that family kind of as a group we're going to do it together mentality in a project. Then the tough part is - so what actually goes has very little to do with us sometimes. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

My mum is incredibly intelligent. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

When you read, you think, and when you smoke, you think. It's a pleasurable thing, and not a duty. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

To act well isn't an easy thing. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Creating something is all about problem-solving. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I think I would have drank myself to death, literally, if I didn't just stop, once and for all when I did. I am not ever going to preach to anyone about drugs or drinking. But, for me, when they were around, I had no self control. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

In a film there a lot of people scheduling, you know. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I like to come to the set with very strong ideas and strong opinions about how to do things. And I like also dealing with somebody who's like that. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

If I was a little bit younger I would worry more. I'd want to do one thing at a time but now I try to do a bunch of different things at a time if I can. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Success isn't what makes you happy. It really isn't. Success is doing what makes you happy and doing good work and hopefully having a fruitful life. If I've felt like I've done good work, that makes me happy. The success part of it is all gravy. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I know I wasn't as handsome as some other guys, but I was OK with that. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Well, in the theater, I think you're actually more responsible for what is going on onstage as a director than you are in film. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

The quantum death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. 24 hours before he was "officially" declared dead it was announced on the internet that he had already died. Many people were shocked to hear of his "official" death, especially those who had believed he was already dead. Philip Seymour Hoffman was both dead and alive in the minds of millions simultaneously. A rare death for a rare actor. — Dean Cavanagh