Remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman: A Master of the Human Soul. Philip Seymour Hoffman didn’t just play characters; he excavated them. In a career defined by an uncompromising search for truth, he became the "one great guarantee" of modern cinema—a performer who could ennoble the most broken, thwarted, and overlooked figures of humanity. From the quiet desperation of Scotty J. in Boogie Nights to the chilling precision of his Oscar-winning turn in Capote, Hoffman possessed a "chameleon-like" abi