Cooper Hoffman 'would love' advice from his late dad Philip Seymour Hoffman: 'He's my favorite actor'

Key points

• Cooper Hoffman says that his late father, Philip Seymour Hoffman, is his favorite actor.

• The Licorice Pizza star wishes he could speak to his dad, who died in 2014: "I would love his advice."

• The actor also said that he would be "terrified" for his father to see his work.

Cooper Hoffman is reflecting on the loss of his father, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

The Saturday Night actor discussed his relationship with the memory and work of his late dad, who won an Oscar for Capote, during an interview with GQ.

"He's my favorite actor, but he's also my dad," the younger Hoffman said. "He's also not here. A lot of people idolize their parents because they're great parents. It's a different thing to idolize your parent because you love their art."

Hoffman said that he wishes his dad, who died in 2014 at the age of 46 following an apparent drug overdose, could help guide him through his career.

"I get to figure this out on my own," he said. "But also, I would love his advice. And I would also just love my dad."

The actor, 22, noted that he felt particularly directionless while preparing to make his Off Broadway debut in the play Curse of the Starving Class earlier this year.

"I was like, I'm so ill-prepared for this," he recalled. "The only person I really wanted to talk to was my dad."

However, the actor acknowledges that his reverence for his father's work might make the elder Hoffman an intimidating mentor.

"As much as I would love him to be here and talk to him about acting, I also would be terrified to have him see my stuff and judge my stuff," he explained. "Not that he would judge it, because he was a very empathetic person, and he would probably — hopefully — hold my hand through all of it."

Hoffman made his film debut in 2021's Licorice Pizza. The movie was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who worked closely with the actor's father on films like The Master, Magnolia, and Boogie Nights.

Hoffman said that he felt a connection to his father's work while working with Anderson on Licorice Pizza.

"In a weird way, it felt almost like I was stepping into my dad's shoes," he told The Independent in 2022. "It really was this feeling of: Maybe this is what he felt like. It was this weird out-of-body experience. I felt incredibly close to my dad through the whole shooting process."

The actor will next star in The Long Walk, a Stephen King adaptation from filmmaker Francis Lawrence, who worked with Philip Seymour Hoffman on three Hunger Games movies. Earlier this year, the younger Hoffman told Vanity Fair that he was thinking about his dad as he portrayed a character who lost his father.

"The way I always had to think about it was, like, my relationship to my father or my relationship to my parents in general," Hoffman said. "You kind of believe everything they tell you, and you kind of want to do what they want to. You want to be them, even if you don't want to be them. Growing up, you start to realize that what they are is not you."

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

The Long Walk hits theaters on Sept. 12.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly