My Brief Encounter With Philip Seymour Hoffman: Sundance film festival overwhelmed Park City, UT, the city in which I reside, filling the streets with the Hollywood I had moved here to escape. After multiple performances and gifting lounges, I was exhausted and ready to hole up again in my cozy mountain home while the town continued in its frenzy. My agent called inviting me to a dinner, which I initially turned down, but then she explained that photographer and film maker Anton Corbijn would be there, someone she thought I should know. Knowing the legendary talent that he is, I reconsidered, but I was still on the fence and leaning towards a fall onto my soft bed. I was leaving the following morning for a long, multi city trip including Detroit, LA, Hawaii, and New York, and I hadnt packed a single thing. When my agent called back a few minutes later to inform me that Philip Seymour Hoffman would be there, my balance on that fence shifted and I fell right back onto the annoyingly busy Sundance streets. Not many people have the power to pull me away from bed like that. But, on the short list of my favorite movies of all time, there is one called Before the Devil Knows Youre Dead, which is made so unrelentingly suspenseful by Hoffmans guilt ridden character. Then of course there was his stunning Oscar winning performance as Capote, among many other characters including his often times smaller supporting roles in which he always managed to steal the show. Being such a huge fan of Hoffmans, I didnt want to miss the chance to meet him. Im so glad I did too, because little did I know it would be my only chance to meet him. I sat towards the middle of the table, Hoffman and his crew to the left, my crew to the right. Im naturally shy and didnt want to impose in conversation, so I kept to myself and to my crew all of dinner. As we walked out I was kicking myself for not introducing myself the WHOLE dinner, and now the night was over. Idiot. My agent asked if I got a chance to meet him and I said no, so she briefly introduced me. We shook hands and kindly said hello, but I knew that was it, I wasnt going to have the introspective arty conversation with him I had been hoping for. Then something strange happened. Just after shaking hands, we turned to see that all of our people had left us standing there, alone together. Awkward, I thought. He was actually the one to break the awkward moment and asked me what I was doing at Sundance. We conversed for a few minutes, and he didnt know me from Adam but he seemed to be more interested in what I had going on than talking about himself. When I told him Id be on a plane to Detroit in the morning to work with Eminem, his eyes lit up. Our conversation was stunted when a mob of fans slowly creeped up around us. Someone asked him for a picture, and judging by the crowd behind them, wisely he declined. But a second person approached for a picture, which he took reluctantly, and as he suspected as soon as he was willing to take one picture, EVERYONE wanted a picture. Of course no one recognized me, so I instinctively went into security mode and started shuffling him out of the mob. Spotting and reuniting with my manager in the midst, together we hustled him into my white suburban that my assistant had just pulled up. He sat in my truck escaping the cold and hectic streets, and waited a while until his ride finally arrived. When they did, he turned to us and said, You guys are saints for this, then exited the vehicle. Not exactly the encounter I had been expecting, but then again it never is, is it? No more was really said or thought about that night, but I was happy to have had that experience. Two weeks later as I slept in Hawaii on vacation, my mind a million miles away from anything work related, I had a dream. In my dream, I was in a coffee shop with Hoffman, and he was asking me for my phone number. It felt like another real life encounter, as if we had run into each other again and decided to exchange contact information this time. When I awoke from the dream, I reached for my phone as usual to see what emails and texts I had missed during the night. There was only a single email from a friend, with the subject, Philip Seymour Hoffman Found Dead. I couldnt believe my eyes. I cant help but wonder why I dreamed about him that night. Was it that he visited me after he died? Do I have some kind of psychic power?And whatever the cause of my dream, is there a deeper meaning? The existentialist in me awakens as the great Philip Seymour Hoffman rests in peace.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Feb 2014 14:12:40 +0000
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