Far from being a well known actor, Phillip Seymor Hoffman is toted by Directors as one of the best character actors of his time. "I don't think there's anything he can't do," Ripley director Anthony Minghella raved to Time, while Schumacher informed the Sun, "The bad news is Philip will never make $25 million a picture. The good news is he'll be working for the rest of his life. He is quite possibly the best character actor of his generation."

Hoffman was born to Gordon and Marilyn on July 23, 1967 in Fairport N.Y. He has two siblings, a sister and a brother. His brother is a screenwriter. Hoffman's mother made a living as a lawyer. Hoffman took up acting as a way of taking his mind off a separated vertebrae injury that put the end to his interest in football, wrestling and baseball. 15 years old at the time he spent moths putting on quite a show for his recently divorced mother to prevent them from doing an operation that he considered embarrassing. They wanted to operate and then wanted to put my head in one of those halo braces and I thought that would be so embarrassing that I just couldn't face it," he said in an interview with the L.A. Times Syndicate. "So I lied about how much it hurt and just lived with the injury."

Hoffman has began with high school drama and worked his way up to the big leagues. His rendition of the lead in "The Death of Salesman" wowed an audience of 600 and it was this that proved he was on the right track. Even so at one point he did have to take work as a waiter to make ends meet. Though he admits he was an awful waiter. His part in "Scent of a Woman" ensured that Hoffman would never have to take another non-acting job. He will never be famous but he will always have work.

Hoffman has played a number of roles, most of them make the fans go "ewww". To Hoffman though concerns about making it in the business pale in comparison to his passion for the theater. "It's not [about] going into 'the business,'" he explained. "The business can't be a thought. You get a foothold because you want to get a foothold as an artist. Your desire, your intensity, has to be about being a great actor. If that's strong enough, it'll lead you to good teachers and to places where you'll learn."

Hoffman's success may lie in his ability to find the humanity in largely unlikable folks. "I don't label or judge," he told Time. "I just play them as honestly and expressively and creatively as I can, in the hope that people who would ordinarily turn their heads in disgust instead think, 'What I thought I'd feel about that guy, I don't totally feel right now.'"

You know him from his roles in "Patch Adams", "Boogie Knight", and as a storm chasing tag along in "Twister".