We couldn’t help but notice that in all of the tributes and appreciations for deceased actor Philip Seymour Hoffman yesterday, there was scant mention of one of his first big big-screen breakthroughs: his portrayal of a commitment-phobic, hipster boyfriend in the 1998 made-in-Boston indie “Next Stop Wonderland.”
Hoffman, 46, who was found dead of an apparent drug overdose in his New York apartment Sunday, was only 29 when he shot the memorable scene in the South End that opens “Next Stop.” Melancholy world-weary nurse Erin, played by indie darling Hope Davis, trudges home from work to find her boyfriend (Hoffman) has packed up his Volvo (covered in bumper stickers with lefty slogans like “Think Globally, Act Locally”) and is hitting the road to go protest development on an Indian reservation. He’s made her a videotape listing the “six points of why I believe our relationship is doomed.”
Hoffman, who is not nearly as heavy as he would be in subsequent films, sports a scruffy beard, long hair, Birkenstocks, a knit cap and a trench coat for the opening shot that immediately sets the tone for unlucky-in-love Erin’s quest to find Mr. Right. They fight over him taking the VCR and, as a final insult, Hoffman sticks his heartbroken girlfriend with his cat, Fidel.
Directed by then-fledgling filmmaker Brad Anderson, the movie was shot entirely in Boston in 1996. The following year it was accepted into the oh-so-prestigious Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for, but did not win, the Grand Jury Prize. But then-Miramax main man Harvey Weinstein liked it so much he ponied up $6 million to purchase “Next Stop” at Sundance.
The flick went on to make about $3.4 million at the box office — a disappointment for Harvey. But it launched more than a few careers, including eventual Oscar winner Hoffman’s, whose next role would take him to the next level, playing a sexually repressed, gay porn film sound man in “Boogie Nights.”
Anderson went on to become a prolific TV director, helming episodes of hit series like “Treme,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “The Killing” and “Fringe.” Lincoln homegal Callie Thorne, who plays Erin’s jealous galpal Cricket, subsequently nabbed a juicy role in “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” and later in HBO’s “The Wire,” and now stars in her own USA Network series, “Necessary Roughness.”
Holland Taylor, Erin’s meddlesome mom in the flick, has a recurring role as a meddlesome mom on “Two and a Half Men.” And Jason Lewis, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him turn as a male model, resurfaced as a male model, aka The Absolut Hunk, on “Sex and the City.”
Investigators in New York have not yet issued an official cause of death for Hoffman. An autopsy was performed yesterday and police sources told The Associated Press that tests confirmed there was heroin in some of the dozens of plastic packets found in Hoffman’s apartment. The actor, who had completed a stint in rehab last spring, was reportedly found dead in a bathroom with a syringe in his arm.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1bpqNMM
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