Philip Seymour Hoffman

Born: July 23rd 1967
Where: Fairport, New York

The independent movie icon attracted plaudits across the board for his mesmerising portrayal of Trueman Capote in the biopic Capote.

A reliable supporting actor during the early 1990s, he landed his big break in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia in 1999.

Subsequent outings have seen him impress in roles ranging from the journalist Lester Bangs in Almost Famous to a lecherous priest in Cold Mountain.

Brought up in upstate New York he described his early years as "somewhere between white trash and affluence."

His parents - his father worked for Xerox and his lawyer mother, a staunch democrat and feminist, divorced when he was young.

After a neck injury cut short a career in wrestling, he moved to New York City and attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and the Square Professional Theatre School.

The comedy Leap Of faith in 1992 offered him a supporting role and by 1992 he was appearing in such high profile features as Scent of a Woman, the movie he claimed launched his career.

He subsequently landed roles in bigger movies such as Money For Nothing, The Getaway and When A Man Loves A Woman.

By this time, his standing was high in Hollywood circles and his next role was one of the storm chasers in the box office smash Twister.

In 1997, he teamed up with Thomas Anderson and John C Reilly for the porn movie drama and critical hit Boogie Nights.

After a couple of years of stage and TV movie turns, he landed a pivotal role in the Coen brothers' comedy The Big Lebowski and in the acclaimed independent movie Next Stop, Wonderland.

Still in the mainstream, his next project was opposite Robert De Niro in Flawless, helmed by Joel Schumacher.

This led to another job with Reilly and Anderson in Magnolia, the three hour long dramatic epic with Tom Cruise and Julianne Moore.

Next up was the role of the suspicious Freddie Miles in The Talented Mr Ripley and he also featured in David Mamet's undernourished State and Main.

He played gonzo journalist Lester Bangs in Almost Famous and also appeared in Love Liza and the hack who comes to a gruesome end in Red Dragon.

In 2003, he played an embezzling bank manager in Owning Mahowny and a dodgy priest in Cold Mountain with Jude Law and Nicole Kidman.

Hoffman looks set for great things after bagging the Best Actor Oscar (and virtually every other award going) for universally acclaimed drama Capote.

Exceptional though it is, his take on American writer Truman Capote didn't reach as large an audience as his follow-up as Tom Cruise's nemesis in Mission: Impossible 3.

In 2007, he starred in a trio of critically acclaimed films - as the frustrated brother of Laura Linney in The Savages, a corrupt accountant in Before The Devil Knows Your Dead and a CIA fixer in Charlie Wilson's War.