With the media speculating earlier this year on the dark, final days and weeks of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, it’s often easy to forget that in addition to being one of the best actors of his generation, he was a loving father too. And his children and career come up in this slightly bruising animated short from PBS.
Using a conversation with Simon Critchley recorded on December 22, 2012 at the Rubin Museum of Art, producer David Gerlach and animator Patrick Smith, put together the actors’ thoughts on being happy, keeping the darkness at bay and making unlikeable and repellent characters relatable. Given what would happen a couple of years later makes this much more poignant, but even so, Hoffman still spoke at the time with the authority and wisdom of someone who had been to the lowest lows.
It’s a lovely tribute and well worth a watch below. [EW]