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 hen I think about Philip Seymour Hoffman, the first image that comes to mind is that scene from Boogie Nights in which he's crying and babbling about romantic abandonment or the prospect of it, I can't remember which, great streams of snot and tears running down his face. It's a nasty moment, but riveting, and not in a clichéd car-wreck sort of way. He allows himself to be openly ugly in a way in which other actors don't there's no Pacinoesque preening or DeNiro showiness about gut size — yet there's something intimate and magnetic about his ugliness, something that reaches out to what you fear is ugly about yourself and pulls it toward the screen, where they meet somewhere in between and have a conversation.This quality serves him well in Capote, the biopic of the infamously mannered and obnoxious social gadfly who became famous for writing Breakfast at Tiffany's and a household name with In Cold Blood, his groundbreaking "nonfiction novel" about the murder of a farm family in western Kansas. The film documents the time Capote spent researching and writing Blood, traveling to Kansas with his childhood friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener). Capote weaves his way into the killers' cells, extracting intimate details by promising that he can score them better legal representation. If this were ever a priority for him (the film suggests not), it becomes less so as he realizes the best-seller quality of his material. ("This book will change the way people write!" his editor tells him, and he believes it.) As Capote's self-ardor grows, he and Lee grow apart, and he ultimately, literally, leaves his subjects hanging. The film argues that Capote's guilt about his manipulations shattered him, making him unable to finish another book. There are some interesting sexual elements to Capote's story: the extent to which Capote's attraction to his killers influenced his involvement, his lifelong relationship with novelist Jack Dunphy, his unapologetic flamboyance in a more sedate time. The film only hints at them; I asked Hoffman how they figured into his potentially Oscar-winning performance. — Michael Martin
What are you working on? Mission Impossible 3. It's going good. Do you get to be physical in the role? Have you blown anything up yet? I do get to be physical. I haven't blown anything up. You should put in a request for that. I don't actually think I get to do that. Other people do it for me. How does all the Oscar buzz sit with you? I think it's a good thing, the fact that people are responding to it as strongly as they have been. It's beyond what we expected, before we got the money to make it and everything, so it's all kind of gravy right now. I'm just kind of trying to stay sane and move forward. What did you expect? When you're making a film, it's not your first assumption that the film's going to do well; you're just trying to make the film well. The fact that it's going to be successful is not something you think about or assume. It has been more than that already, so that's more than what we expected. You originally thought the idea of you playing Capote was "insane." Why? I thought it was crazy. I'm bigger than he is. I don't act like him at all. That doesn't mean I can't do it, because actors are supposed to change themselves for roles, but it seemed like a big stretch and one in which the risk of failure was maybe too huge. What seemed most risky? Nothing more than anything else. The whole thing's a risky package. Anything could kill you: his reputation, the way he sounds, what he is, what he says. You've got to do everything a certain way because it's a package. And you don't know what could be the thing that you wouldn't do well. Do you relate to Truman Capote in any way? I related to his actions as an artist and his ambitions. There was a lot of the story I could relate to and get behind and really did turn me on. There was a certain amount of passion. What kind of passion? As a creative person, you're looking for that thing that frees you up, that makes you lucid, that makes you feel like all of a sudden you have ideas pumping easily. I think everyone relates to that. He was at a certain point in his career, which is where I am too. I'm at a certain point in my career as an actor. At thirty-five, you're looking for something you weren't looking for when you were twenty-one. You don't know what that is, and then it comes across your face. Perry Smith [one of the killers] walking up the courthouse steps. What impact did it have on a man's life, much less a culture of a country? When it comes to journalism and writing and celebrity and reality television, for God's sake. It really does spin out into an area that's pretty huge. I mean, there's people who don't know who Capote is who've been affected by that book. He's a pretty repugnant character. Well, that's a little much when you think about a guy who shotgunned a family of four in the face. When you put it in context, what he did was not literally criminal. He is manipulating and deceiving and lying to a man who shotgunned a family of four in the face. I agree, his actions are condemnable. I don't think he's a nice guy. He's a prick sometimes. But at the end of the day, he had a lot of justification working that helped him push forward. But I think the real crime isn't that. The crime is how intimate he got with them. That wasn't just because of the book; he couldn't help himself. I think there was an obsession there. But the guy wasn't psychotic, he didn't not feel anything. Because of the case, he didn't write anything again. That's what the movie's about, ultimately: he created a situation that was part of, or the beginning of, his destruction. For me, it was pretty easy to be sympathetic. If it were a guy who didn't give a shit, I'd think, What's the point there? But that wasn't the case. Did you research his sexuality? There's no preparation you do on someone's sexuality. It just is, it's part of who they are. Of course, so you wouldn't you want to know the details. I remember reading in a biography of Warhol that he wasn't just gay, he was afraid of sex. He got off on watching, not participating, and that drove his art. I'd think that information would be essential to any actor playing him. Exactly. Well, I don't talk about that point too much. I think I've discussed it once before. No matter how much you read on Capote, it's not like the Jackie Collins stuff. This isn't a guy who you get the feeling he jumps from bed to bed, or that the physical act of the relationship was the most important one. I might be wrong about that, but that's what I read in research. I think he was a real emotional guy, raw, open, a deep-feeling man. I think he had deep connections with people. He knew a lot of people, but wasn't close to many. That was my feeling. I could be wrong. I think he was closer to Perry Smith than most people in his life. And I don't think that had to do with them sleeping together, I think that had to do with a deep emotional identification that nagged at him deeply. I think the film covers that very well. I've read some things about his sexuality, and you never know what's true and not true when it comes to Truman's life. There was much more made of the homoerotic attraction between Perry Smith and Capote than was actually in the film. Capote comes off as asexual even his relationship with his partner seems totally sexless. The story isn't so much about the issue of his sexuality, the story is about his attraction to another person. We didn't feel like we had to physicalize his attraction to Perry Smith, because it would detract from the crux of the story, which was Capote's emotional attraction to Perry. The fact that he was gay was a given. I think you don't ever question whether he's gay and whether that has something to do with his relationship to the two men. And his relationship to Jack Dunphy was a long one. We're picking up that relationship after they've been together for a while, and we wanted to focus on the fact that Jack was his mirror in a lot of ways. When he's with Jack, he's not on. There's a certain truth there. Did you worry that getting Truman's mannerisms right would overwhelm the performance? I didn't try to be perfect with his mannerisms, although how he talked and behaves is a given to the story. He has to go to Kansas and be a fish out of water. Did you talk with anyone who knew Capote? I was friends with Dick Avedon before he passed on. About four or five years ago, I had a dinner with him, which was very helpful. He was there in Kansas with Truman; he took all those famous photographs of the defendants and the courtroom and everything. I spoke to a few friends of mine who knew him as an acquaintance or had an evening with him, because the movie is really a private tragedy about a public figure, so I wanted to get as much information as possible about him privately. Was there a common thread among the people who remembered him? The common thread was that everyone had similar and very different things to say about him. It all depended on what that person's feeling was about Truman. Some people didn't have fond memories of him, some people had positive feelings and remembered that toward the end it got very bad. Some people had rose-colored glasses. Some people had positive memories but knew he did bad things or hurt people, and they understood that didn't mean he wasn't a generally loyal or nice man. I did get the feeling that this was a very sensitive guy. Somebody said, "He was the nicest mean man I ever met." That's kind of what it came down to. He did things to hurt people and I do think he did things that should be criticized. But he never didn't touch somebody in a way that was warm, and that was part of his charm. There were only one or two people who said, "I don't like the guy; he was a fuckin' asshole." Those were usually people who didn't know him that well. But they were usually funny anecdotally. What did Avedon tell you? Both things. He knew him early on, and he knew him later. They had a big falling-out. He'd done this picture of Capote in the '70s, where he's showing his stomach through his shirt. It's not a very attractive photo, but it's brilliant. And Truman hated it, said as much, and put Avedon down because of it. Really was mad about it. It's one of the great photos — it's fucking great. It's just true. I knew there was a better picture in there, but that's not what Avedon was looking for. He's going to look for the picture that's going to expose part of who you are. You know, Truman wasn't good at turning the other cheek. He was good at exposing people through his writing, but when people did that to him, he didn't like it that much. But at least he was honest about that. n° 
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