Fair or no, Cooper Hoffman has one hell of a legacy to live up to as he works to make a name for himself as an actor in Hollywood. His talent will hopefully be judged on its own merits, but nobody will ever forget that he is the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman – one of the most phenomenal talents of his generation. That's a difficult thing to grapple with, but as an example of performing as a kind of therapy, the young Hoffman had the chance to confront his feelings in the making of the upcoming Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk.
Vanity Fair has published a preview of the new Francis Lawrence-directed dystopian film, and the piece provides early insight into the story's protagonist Ray Garraty, played by Hoffman. The character's motivation for joining the titular competition is a tribute to his deceased father (who is described as being "resistance-minded"). The actor processed this by thinking about his own personal relationship with his dad, who died in 2014. Hoffman explained,
The way I always had to think about it was, like, my relationship to my father or my relationship to my parents in general. You kind of believe everything they tell you, and you kind of want to do what they want to. You want to be them, even if you don’t want to be them. Growing up, you start to realize that what they are is not you. To try to live your life for someone else, especially for someone else who isn’t there.
There is a spotlight on the father-son relationship between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Cooper Hoffman, but what he is saying here is universally relatable. Our relationships with our parents/guardians is foundational for obvious reasons, and how we view them often sculps how we view ourselves. But perspectives and those relationships change through maturity and experience. The Licorice Pizza star grew to understood that about himself as Ray Garraty presumably understands it in The Long Walk.
Based on the book of the same name (originally published under Stephen King's pseudonym Richard Bachman), the story is set in a not-too-distant future that sees a dystopian America host a grim but incredibly popular competition. Essentially a death march, a collection of teenage boys start walking along a highway, and with no established finish line, the last kid standing is the winner of a grand prize. If any of them slow down or stop, they get a warning, and if three warnings are collected within an hour – or there is any attempt at escape – the punishment is death by gunshot.
Given these rules, the stakes are incredibly high for all of the competitors, but the personalities are fleshed out with conflicts of their own – and Ray Garraty is driven by his desire to honor the legacy of his father. He is filled with rage directed at the world that echoes his dad's, but Cooper Hoffman recognizes that there is something beneath it (quoting co-star David Jonsson's character):
There’s a nice scene in the movie where [McVries] is saying, ‘Anger only gets you so far.’ And it is true, because anger is a feeling based on grief.
And adding a whole extra dimension into the mix is the noteworthy fact that Philip Seymour Hoffman died shortly before completing his work on the blockbuster two-parter The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, directed by Francis Lawrence.
In addition to Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson, the impressive ensemble cast of The Long Walk also includes Mark Hamill, Judy Greer, Roman Griffin Davis, Charlie Plummer, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Ben Wang, Jordan Gonzalez, and Joshua Odjick. The first trailer for the movie will be arriving online tomorrow, May 6, in advance of the film's scheduled release on September 12 – and to keep up to date with all of the latest goings on in the world of Stephen King, my column The King Beat publishes here on CinemaBlend every Thursday.
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