Philip Seymour Hoffman has a rumpled awkwardness about him that makes him an unlikely film star and that's a significant part of his appeal. Luckily, the fair-skinned Oscar winner is the first to make light of the fact that he's not matinee idol material.

"A lot of people describe me as chubby or tow-headed," muses the theatre-trained New Yorker. "I'm never described in attractive ways. I'm waiting for somebody to say I'm at least cute, but nobody has."

That hasn't stopped him being one of the most sought-after character actors in the business ‒ particularly since his stunning performance as Truman Capote in Capote which won him a Best Actor Academy Award in 2006.

This year he's in no less than three films being released, with leading roles in Sydney Lumet's Before The Devil Knows You're Dead and Tamara Jenkins' The Savages and a supporting turn alongside Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in Charlie Wilson's War.

A dark caper movie that's a mix of thriller and Greek tragedy, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead has Mr Seymour Hoffman playing a desperate man with sexuality issues and a cashflow problem who entices his gormless brother (Ethan Hawke) to rob a jewellery store in the truest sense of the word ‒ it belongs to their own parents.

The Savages is another family comedy/drama ‒ this time centring on two adult siblings who find themselves plucked from their self-centred lives to care for their estranged father sliding into dementia.

And in Mike Nichols's likeable twist at global politics Charlie Wilson's War, Mr Seymour Hoffman plays a resentful CIA agent who aids a good-ol'-boy Texas congressman (Tom Hanks) in his clandestine plan to arm the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s.

It seems everyone wants to work with the 40-year-old from Fairport, New York. How could he turn down the likes of acclaimed veteran helmers like Sydney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon) and Mike Nichols (The Graduate), Mr Seymour Hoffman says. "Mike calls you and says, 'Do you want to be in my movie?' you're hardly likely to say, 'Maybe Mike, let me look at my schedule, I'll let you know'."

In The Savages he teams up with Laura Linney as siblings cocooned in their own complicated lives who are thrown together out of necessity. This was another project he read years ago that eventually came back to him. "I just loved the script and I always wanted to do it so I was glad it came back around," he says.

The matter of aging parents is something most of us have to deal with at some stage. Mr Seymour Hoffman's own parents divorced when he was nine and he and his three siblings were largely raised by their mother, a judge.

"Both my parents are still alive so I haven't had to deal with that," he says about the film's core dilemma of placing a deteriorating father in care. "But I am, of course, dealing with aging parents and they're dealing with aging children and isn't that beautiful?"

The humour and the honesty of the story appealed to the actor. "I love the unique way the story is told. When you're doing something like that, what you usually get is humour."

"This film has a lot of different things that could affect people," says Mr Seymour Hoffman. "Some are going to be affected by putting the father in a home, some are going to be affected by the estrangement."

Then there's the matter of an abusive father and the sibling rivalry.

"There are multi-faceted things that come up and I just hope the audiences key into something." The actor didn't disagree with the actions of his character, even what might be seen as the irredeemable decision to send his girlfriend back to Poland. "What he says and does has a lot of logic to it," explains Mr Seymour Hoffman. "But what makes him so interesting is the fact that affection overwhelms him. There's a richness to the screenplay."

Mr Seymour Hoffman was able to draw on personal experience for the role, and hopes those watching will be able to do the same in order to be drawn into the movie. "I have siblings, I have a relationship with a father. There's all that stuff to call upon."

Charlie Wilson's War was equally challenging. The posters for the film have Mr Seymour Hoffman sharing credits with Mr Hanks and Ms Roberts, which is a reflection of how much his star has risen, but he says he puts the same amount of work into every role.

"It's all a big machine, isn't it depressing," grins the actor. "The thing is whether you're working in an independent film or a big budget film, all the same problems arise. In one you don't have as much money or as many frills, but ultimately you're under the gun like anything."

An actor who likes to frequently return to doing theatre Mr Seymour Hoffman is having to juggle film stardom with being a parent. He and his partner, costume designer Mimi O'Donnell, have two young children.

"My daughter's a year old so she's the master of her own universe really," he says, "but my son comes with us to the theatre. They're all going to be introduced to acting just by the life that we're in."

Acting allows the fiercely private performer to indulge things he doesn't in his normal life, he admits. "I'm probably more open when I'm acting than at any other time. It allows me to be something that I can't always feel comfortable with when I'm living my own life, because it's make-believe."

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