Philip Seymour Hoffman transforms for role

‘He was the only choice’
“Capote,” though, hinged entirely on Hoffman, said director Bennett Miller, who along with the film’s screenwriter Dan Futterman has been friends with Hoffman since the three met at a theater program in 1984.

“He was the only choice. He was going to do it or we weren’t going to do it,” Miller said. “I’ve known Phil for 21 years now, and I feel I know him inside and out, and other than him being an incredible actor, a shamanlike actor, I will say that everything in this movie that gets revealed through this character are things that Phil knows.

“Meaning he’s not putting it on. He’s more letting it out. He learned the mechanicals of how to play this guy, but the spirit that gets expressed through the mechanicals is his. He owns that.”

“Capote” is the first of two movies dealing with the author’s “In Cold Blood” years. The second — an as-yet-untitled film starring Toby Jones as Capote and Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee and featuring Gwyneth Paltrow as singer Peggy Lee — is due out in fall 2006.

By that time, Hoffman will have moved on to his next gig, playing the villain to Tom Cruise’s heroic agent in next summer’s “Mission: Impossible 3.”

“To play a bad guy in an action movie is something I’ve never done, and I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again. So this is really that opportunity, and it’s the perfect place to do it, perfect people to do it with,” said Hoffman, gushing over the prospect of mixing it up with Cruise.

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