10 Years Gone : Reflections on PSH : Died Feb 2, 2014

Still remember when and where I got this awful news. I remember being shook up by it. Such an amazing talent. Can only imagine what more he would have achieved. I feel like he would have ventured into even more stage work and even directing (both plays and film).

Towering actor. One of the few who legitimately could juggle technical challenges with raw intensity. At the time of his death, he was certainly in my top 4 working screen actors. I didn't think he was particularly interesting in The Master, though. Much preferred him in something like A Most Wanted Man.

Not to derail the thread (he said as he derailed the thread), but what are your thoughts on Michael Shannon? He was never PSH level, but they strike me as similar in actually capturing everyman Americans better than most other actors - and both can ham it up really well if the situation calls for it as well. (I'm watching a Shannon movie tonight and was reminded of him.)

Pretty much what Tommen said. I don't have a definite favorite actor (or a top 10) rn, but the time that I did... it was him. His breakdown (the pillow, the shooting, the agony- my my my) in Before the Devil which I caught on TV, might've been the performance that made me fall for not the character or director but for what an actor could do, and that picking to watch a film because they're in it, to do some "serious" work that could move me as a viewer, can be a thing.

And boy he did it a bunch of times aferwards and I haven't seen like half of his acclaimed work to this day, so... the man lives on in this house.

Same (and Robin Williams was that way too for me later that year). I had planned to watch the Super Bowl that day, but once I heard about PSH's death, I ended up not watching it because I just wasn't in the mood anymore.

I consider Denzel Washington to be the greatest actor of this century ( American or otherwise) and he's surpassed the 70's class, imho. And surpassed Brando, if he was considered the previous highwater mark for American actors.

But Philip Seymour Hoffman was arguably the greatest character actor of his generation. He could play lead roles when called upon, but he wasn't a leading man or a "movie star". Not really. In that sense, it's not really fair to stack him up alongside iconic leading men like Brando, Nicholson, Pacino, DeNiro, Hackman and Washington, without acknowledging that context. He'll never have their broader appeal. I don't see him much in GOAT conversations outside cinephile circles, and it's because of that. 

But he was such a brilliant character actor. They are very different actors, but I feel that had John Cazale lived longer, he'd have had a similar career to PSH as arguably our premiere character actor. It's a real tragedy that we lost PSH, but also something of a blessing that he managed to leave behind enough to have what can be considered to be a complete body of work, even though he clearly had decades left of great work in him. And what a performance in The Master. 

He stands out for me more and more every time I watch The Big Lebowski.