Check out this article about Philip Seymour Hoffman, who’s revealed as someone neither as innocent nor as humble as the press sometimes portrays him. Journalist Jennifer Drapkin engages in a bout of psychological thrust and parry with the actor who, before winning a Best Actor Oscar for Capote, distinguished himself as, to name just a few of his many memorable roles, Jason Robards’ nurse in Magnolia, Scotty the confused soundman in Boogie Nights, and, my personal favorite, a particularly obnoxious craps player in Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliantly risky film about gambling, Hard Eight.
For anybody plagued with the fear of failure (and not just an actor or a writer or an artist — anybody), Hoffman’s words will hit home: “It doesn’t matter how brilliant or wonderful I think I am. On any given day, no matter how hard I fight, there is somebody who can take me down. I can fail in front of my peers. I can fail in front of my parent. I just have a certain understanding that I am only as good as yesterday when it comes to what I do for a living.”