Hoffman takes on meaty roles | The West Australian

HELEN BARLOWThe West Australian This month Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman is coming in movies alongside Hollywood's two heavy hitters, Brad Pitt in Bennett Miller's Moneyball

and George Clooney in his third directing effort, The Ides of March. And Hoffman plays a heavy in both films, quite literally. In fact in Moneyball he looks incredibly rotund in clingy

baseball gear as a coach, and he's only slightly slimmer in The Ides of March where he suits up for his role as Clooney's presidential campaign manager. Physical appearance is not

something you usually bring up with the accomplished stage actor and Oscar winner, who casts as daunting a presence in real life as he does on screen and stage. Still, I'll give it a

go, as, like his more jovial Ides co-star, Paul Giamatti (who plays the campaign manager for the opposing candidate), he seems to have lost some weight. "There you go," he says

reluctantly. "It's good actually." Our Venice interview takes place just after I have spoken to Giamatti and it's hard to find two more talented or busier actors working

today. Yet even if they both live in New York and are the same age, 44, they had never worked together before. "It's probably because we're always up for the same parts,"

Hoffman admits. "We've known each other on and off for a while and have lots of mutual friends in the business. It's just the way it goes. You kind of grow up in an acting

community, get to a certain age and know everyone a little bit." While Giamatti admits that he still has to fight for roles, the kind of competition depicted in Clooney's movie,

which is based on Beau Willimon's play, Farragut North, is far fiercer. "I'm not on screen that much but they talk about me all the time," Giamatti notes quizzically.

"Phil's character has this hatred of me and it's interesting how these guys are driven by such personal animosity which is kind of great. They want to beat each other

up." The drama comes after Giamatti coerces Clooney's press secretary (Ryan Gosling) to meet him and this simply is not done. There's also a scandalous secret involving a

young intern (Evan Rachel Wood) and someone has to take the fall. Hoffman: "My character has a job where it's important that the people working with him are really loyal. It's

essential that he stays nice and paranoid and that the people around him are 100 per cent supportive of this person trying to get into office." By taking the even smaller role in

Moneyball, which is based on Michael Lewis' book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Hoffman has shown loyalty to Miller, whom he has known since his student days at New York

University. Miller had also helped deliver Hoffman his best actor Oscar in Capote. Moneyball, which tells the true story of Oakland As manager Billy Beane (Pitt) trying to incorporate a

modern mathematical method into the game, had a long gestation period and Hoffman wanted to help the film get made. He's also a huge fan of baseball. "I grew up playing baseball

and had a great time practising during the shooting," he said. "For me, though, the film was more a character study than about the game. Bennett really knows how to delve down and

explore human nature and I appreciate that. In a way I'm the foil; I'm the wall that Billy had to break through." Moneyball opens on November 10. The Ides of March opens on

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