But at one point I remember asking him some real JV-ball actor-interview question about what, if anything, he felt he had in common with Truman Capote. Hoffman thought about it for a second, and then talked about how Capote was 35 when he started reporting the story that became In Cold Blood, and how there comes a time in every man’s life, around your mid-thirties, when you start to ask yourself, Have I done the great thing I was supposed to do? Am I ever going to do it?

And then there’s Wesley Morris, also writing for Grantland:

Before Capote, he mostly played the schlubby irritant who mocked typical actor vanities. You were drawn to his weirdos, freaks, losers, and assholes — to their nastiness and cruelty — because the actor playing them didn’t seem to have a long game. He didn’t want stardom. He didn’t care what we thought. If he wanted to play a guy who makes obscene phone calls and masturbates (as he did in Todd Solondz’s 1998 tonal masterpiece Happiness), then he would. If he wanted to spend Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights desperate for Mark Wahlberg, so be it.

This Fresh Air remembrance is also worth your time. I have an affection for actors who so clearly put thought—which usually means annoyance as well as enthusiasm—into their answers during interviews. The two interviews of him are full of thought and realness and flaws.

Joe Stracci