{"id":2477,"date":"2008-12-23T11:16:03","date_gmt":"2008-12-23T11:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/12\/portrait-of-a-priest-philip-se.html"},"modified":"2008-12-23T11:16:03","modified_gmt":"2008-12-23T11:16:03","slug":"portrait-of-a-priest-philip-se","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/12\/portrait-of-a-priest-philip-se.html","title":{"rendered":"Portrait of a Priest: Philip Seymour Hoffman on ‘Doubt’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"doubtpic.jpg\"<\/span>I’ll see Philip Seymour Hoffman<\/a> in just about anything–his acting is brilliant to a shocking degree, but even rarer is the way he disappears into a role, despite the fact that we all know who he is by now.
\nIf you like Hoffman as much as I do, then this week’s New York Times Magazine cover article, “A Higher Calling<\/a>,” is not to be missed: reporter Lynn Hirschberg attempts to get into Hoffman’s head when he’s getting his head around a particular part, including the accused Father Flynn in “Doubt<\/a>.”<\/p>\n


\nOn becoming Father Flynn, Hoffman explains about his struggle with the character:
\n“On every film, you’ll have nights where you wake up at 2 in the morning and think, I’m awful in this,” he recalled. “You see how delicate it is — a little movement to the right or the left, and you’re hopelessly hokey.” [“Doubt”] revolves around the question of the priest’s culpability, but that is not what mattered to Hoffman. Hoffman plays the priest as a reformer, a man interested in a more philosophical and tolerant approach to religion. Shanley had given Hoffman a “back story” on Father Flynn, who is based, in part, on a teacher who had a profound impact on Shanley as a boy, but Hoffman added his own interpretation. “I did research by, among other things, going to church. As a kid, I was confirmed and I went to church, but I was bored. Now, I feel the opposite: A good sermon is just like theater. It combines the political scene and the Scriptures, and I thought, Hey, I could do it like that. It’s like a teacher getting up and saying, This is the school I come from.”
\nI saw “Doubt” as a play on Broadway. I haven’t seen the film yet–but I will this weekend. And I can’t wait to see “Philip Seymour Hoffman as Priest”–his performance is sure to be a work of art.
\n\"Philip<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll see Philip Seymour Hoffman in just about anything–his acting is brilliant to a shocking degree, but even rarer is the way he disappears into a role, despite the fact that we all know who he is by now. If you like Hoffman as much as I do, then this week’s New York Times Magazine…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrities","category-movies"],"yoast_head":"\nPortrait of a Priest: Philip Seymour Hoffman on 'Doubt'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/12\/portrait-of-a-priest-philip-se.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Portrait of a Priest: Philip Seymour Hoffman on 'Doubt'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ll see Philip Seymour Hoffman in just about anything–his acting is brilliant to a shocking degree, but even rarer is the way he disappears into a role, despite the fact that we all know who he is by now. If you like Hoffman as much as I do, then this week’s New York Times Magazine…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/12\/portrait-of-a-priest-philip-se.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-23T11:16:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/doubtpic.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Freitas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Portrait of a Priest: Philip Seymour Hoffman on 'Doubt'","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/12\/portrait-of-a-priest-philip-se.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Portrait of a Priest: Philip Seymour Hoffman on 'Doubt'","og_description":"I’ll see Philip Seymour Hoffman in just about anything–his acting is brilliant to a shocking degree, but even rarer is the way he disappears into a role, despite the fact that we all know who he is by now. 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