From an Oscar-winning performance in Capote to a masterly turn in Synecdoche, New York, the unique actor proved the standard-bearer for characterisation
Recently, I found my thoughts irritably returning, like a toe masochistically seeking out a tiny uncomfortable pebble in a shoe, to the spectacularly terrible Hunger Games prequel movie The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – a truly forgettable piece of expired franchise content. A question nagged. Was there something that could have redeemed that dire film, even slightly?
Then I realised a big thing it lacked which its predecessors had: Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose desperately sad death 10 years ago at the age of 46 is still shocking to me. He played the creepy head gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee. It wasn’t his greatest role. It was clearly not much more than a paycheque. But through his presence, The Hunger Games raised their game.
