Cooper Hoffman Rewatches 1 Movie Starring Dad Philip Seymour Hoffman

Cooper Hoffman’s late father, Philip Seymour Hoffman, still plays a key role in his life. 

The 22-year-old actor shared that there’s one of his dad’s final roles that he revisits regularly. “The Master is my favorite. I watch it every time before I’m going to shoot a movie,” Cooper said during an appearance on the 3rd Hour of Today on Friday, Sept. 5. “It’s the best. Because it just has everything. It has love, a relationship, a friendship, parental guidance, occult, all the things are there.” 

The 2012 film starred Philip as Lancaster Dodd, a charismatic cult leader, and Joaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell, a military veteran who falls for his charms. The role earned the late actor an Oscar nomination. 

Coincidentally, the film was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the legendary filmmaker behind the 2021 film Licorice Pizza, which marked Cooper’s acting debut. 

During his morning show interview, Cooper said it was “of course” a challenge to decide to follow in his famous father’s footsteps. “We have an Oscar at the house and that’s not something everyone can say, but it’s something that’s kind of looking at you, like, your whole life and you don’t want to kind of step into something and not do it as well as that person did,” he explained of his dad, who won an Academy Award for Best Actor in 2006 for Capote.

The rising star added, “But then I did Licorice Pizza, and I kept doing movies and I kind of realized that, you know, this is where I want to be right now.” 

Cooper also noted that just because he’s making movies now doesn’t mean that’s his longterm plan.  “It might not be where I want to be for the rest of my life. Who knows? I’ll do it until I don’t want to do anymore,” he shared. 

Philip died in 2014 at the age of 46 from a heroin overdose. He was survived by his longtime girlfriend, Mimi O’Donnell, and their kids, including Cooper and daughters Tallulah and Willa. 

Cooper’s latest project is the dystopian thriller The Long Walk, based off the 1979 novel by Stephen King and written under the pen name Richard Bauchman. It costars David Jonsson, Charlie Plummer, Garrett Wareing and others.

“We were walking 15 miles a day in 100-degree heat in concrete, no shade,” Cooper recalled. “I think that we got excited for this thing that will hopefully never be made again and we all wanted to be a part of it, but then there was a real when you got there and you started walking, the anxiety of actually making it through the day.”

The Long Walk hits theaters on Friday, Sept. 12.