Philip Seymour Hoffman (July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014) was an American actor and director. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 2005 biographical film Capote. He also received three additional Oscar nominations in the Best Supporting Actor category for his role in The Master, Doubt and Charlie Wilson's War. In theater work, Hoffman earned two Tony nominations for his work on stage.

Born in 1967 in Fairport, N.Y., Hoffman was interested in acting from an early age, mesmerized at 12 by a local production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons." He studied theater as a teenager with the New York State Summer School of the Arts and the Circle in the Square Theatre. He then majored in drama at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

On the stage, he performed in revivals of "True West," Long Day's Journey Into Night" and "The Seagull," a summer production that also featured Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. In 2012, he was more than equal to one of the great roles in American theater — Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman," a performance praised as "heartbreaking" by Associated Press theater critic Mark Kennedy.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead February 2, 2014 in his apartment in New York with a hypodermic needle stuck in his left arm and bags of heroin strewn about his home. He was 46.

The acclaimed thespian was set to appear in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, due out in November, 2014.