Philip Seymour Hoffman on the Line Between Imitation and Interpretation: “It's not a literal thing, you know what I mean? Everything, if you give yourself over to it, eventually transcends into something artistic and that's always a world that is a bit gray and indefinable. You do all the kind of concrete work that you can do, the documentaries or the audio tapes or the visuals or what you read, you interview people. I keep saying I put myself alone in a room four months before we started to shoot and tried to get in that room everyday for an hour or two with all these materials that I had and everything I could, and just start working. And what that is, is something that I had to figure out. A lot of it was practice and things like that of technical stuff. But ultimately all that had to be one. Where it wasn't just imitation, it wasn’t just mimicry, it was creating a character. A real guy and it was trial an error.”
Philip Seymour Hoffman on “In Cold Blood:” Hoffman says he didn’t read “In Cold Blood” until after he read the “Capote” script. “I wasn't assigned it like most people. People were like, ‘Oh, I read that in college.' I read other things. And so there was a lot of Capote reading I had to do.”
Did Capote Use the Convicts? “You know, I had to play him so I really didn't spend too much time on my own objective [looking] at it and still going, 'Oh, did he…?' I immediately started to try and look at it through the eyes of Capote. I don't think ultimately, I think he drew them in anonymous light. In that book I think it's somewhat of an empathetic light. In that book, it makes them very real people. You really do get an idea of Perry Smith's background and [Richard] Hickock's background. There is a certain compassion toward these two killers in that book. So that I realized [that] and that was pretty vivid. That tells you a lot about, obviously, how close he got to them.”
The Angle “Capote” Takes on Telling Truman Capote’s Story: “We knew that the story wasn't going to shine him in the best of lights. But it's a tragedy and there wouldn't be tragedy if you didn't see the self-awareness happen, which is not a pleasant one. That happens to him and it begins this downfall, so that's the story. That's the story, it wasn't like a judgment that we made, that's the story. This guy died at age 59 alone, of alcoholism, without writing another book. That's the story. We are trying to tell what we think instigated [it], started that ball rolling. But ultimately in playing him I had to go through his story, so I had to justify his actions in order for it - because he did - in order to go through it, and then ultimately understand what would be the overwhelming thing that would start this downfall in his life.”
On Capote’s Need for the Killers to be Executed: “I know the book only works if they are executed. Who knows what everyone was thinking how the book could have ended and still done well… I think there are a lot of reasons that, again, aren't so black and white of why them dying is beneficial. I think it had to do with the book and it had to do with would he be able to successfully come out and publish this book and get it out there with them still alive and in their voices? Then they could read it. Would they disagree with it? All of these things may come up. There were a lot of issues that he saw and I think he just wanted it clean. He wanted an ending and also wanted it clean, and he was really dealing with it.”
Philip Seymour Hoffman on His Attraction to "Capote"
