There’s a ghost following Cooper Hoffman. Luckily for me, he brings it up first.
We’re only around 20 minutes into breakfast at the West Village staple Morandi the first time Hoffman mentions his late father, the beloved actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. The
restaurant has long been one of his family’s favorite haunts, and the booth three spots over is where Hoffman recently celebrated his younger sister’s high school graduation and acceptance to either Michigan State or the University of Michigan (Hoffman, laughing and shamefaced, keeps forgetting which). When the conversation turns to the New York Knicks’ unbelievable playoff run, a decades-in-the-making miracle that Hoffman had to watch “drunk in bed” while in London attending a wedding, he invokes the memory of a man he lost just a month before his 11th birthday.
“I’ve waited 23 years for the Knicks to be as good as they are. It’s a crazy thing. I don’t like talking about it because it makes it seem sad, but the whole reason I watch the Knicks is because of my dad,” Hoffman says. “My dad not being here was massive… It added a layer of sadness to it that I wish wasn’t there. And I can’t help but be honest about that.”
The loss of anyone, let alone a parent, is hard enough. But Hoffman is facing an even more unique problem: His private pain is something he has to share with the public. People feel like they knew his dad, who died in 2014 of an accidental drug overdose at 46. So they think they know Hoffman. “People come up to me and talk about loss, people dying,” he says, shrugging. And given that he’s chosen to become an actor as well, comparison is inevitable.
Of course, the family legacy is not all woe: Hollywood giants are in Hoffman’s cell phone, handing out pointers and, in the case of director Paul Thomas Anderson, giving him his big break (Licorice Pizza). And if Hoffman feels any pressure, it doesn’t show. His naturalistic acting style and a wide-ranging slate of projects — including this summer’s BDSM comedy I Want Your Sex, the college-set indie Poetic License (Maude Apatow’s directorial debut, due out next year), and Luca Guadagnino’s highly anticipated OpenAI drama Artificial — reflect a refreshingly easygoing approach to his career.
“You’re gonna be compared no matter what. And by the way, to be compared to that guy is a massive honor. My dad’s my favorite actor. I am trying to figure out who I am outside of it,” Hoffman says. “What I hope to leave behind is a lot of good work. But I think there’s a way to go about it and not take it so seriously.”
THE ONCE PALE BLUE sky outside is threatening a storm by the time Hoffman shows me his playlist of sex songs. With one hand curled around a sweating glass of iced americano — Hoffman was at the Today show for an 8 a.m. segment and still has to film a spot at Late Night With Seth Meyers before the New York premiere of I Want Your Sex later tonight — he uses the other to scroll a private Spotify playlist that includes Arctic Monkeys, Frank Ocean, some Brent Fias, Maroon 5, R.E.M., and the Beach Boys. Hoffman says listening to the tracks allowed him to quickly lock in to his character in the hypersexual comedy. Hoffman stars as Elliot, who’s just graduated from college. He’s living with his best friend, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders), fighting a stifling and sexless relationship with his girlfriend, Minerva (Charli XCX), and searching high and low for a job that feels fulfilling. When he’s hired by modern artist Erika Tracey (Olivia Wilde), he’s quickly promoted from lowly assistant to her submissive, thrusting him (literally) into a world of ball gags, maid outfits, and strap-ons.
“I remember first falling in love, I would listen to love songs. There was no bad, no consequences, no heartbreak yet, no jaded opinion,” he says. “Elliot’s in that world with Erika. It’s like, ‘I want to give everything to this person, and I’m not thinking about any of the consequences.’”
Hoffman nails the beatific show of surrender the role requires, a state of mind he says was easier to achieve than he expected given the circumstances. “Elliot is experiencing a level of pleasure and freedom that behind closed doors is really nice to feel. But I’m doing it in front of a bunch of cameramen and boom ops and our director,” he says. “I’m getting spanked in those scenes. My butt is out. When you have to be naked or do anything sexual, it does a lot of the work for you.”
At some point, Hoffman and I realize we’re both staring down the barrel of a beautifully dressed side salad. When I ask if the cyclospora outbreak currently making lettuce a no-go includes arugula, he lets out a big breath. “That’s literally what I was just thinking.” He pushes the plate away with a finger. “Let’s see if it calls to us. We’ll see what happens.”
Onscreen and off, this is Hoffman: disarmingly laid-back. Things are “great,” he’s “a huge fan” of the directors he works with and the ones he’s never met. He gets distracted at multiple points in the interview to discuss his pure exhilaration at the just-announced casting of his The Long Walk co-star David Jonsson as the new Black Panther. “I say this with ease — there’s literally no one else for the job. They’re geniuses for casting him,” he gushes, hands running through his hair in excitement. “Him and Ryan Coogler, are you joking? I’m sat. The dude’s a movie star.”
It’s easy to imagine how this affability charms in audition rooms. The Long Walk director Francis Lawrence describes Hoffman as an intelligent actor whose talent was apparent immediately. “What’s incredible about Cooper is that he feels like a real human being,” he says. “He has a very sophisticated understanding of human behavior and is able to put that into his work.”
Perhaps that realness lies in the fact that acting came as a surprise. Growing up with his two sisters in a three-bedroom apartment on Jane Street, Hoffman clashed with his mother, costume designer Mimi O’Donnell, over “terrible grades” and a lack of drive. “Because of my dad’s passing, in the chaos that was that time, my mom wanted to bring some normalcy back into our lives. So she really cared about school and all these things,” he says. “Honestly, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was freaking out.”
Then he got a call. PTA, who the family used to call Uncle Paul, wanted to audition Hoffman, who had no formal acting experience, for a part in his new film, Licorice Pizza. The two met in New York for a reading with Hoffman’s eventual co-star, Alana Haim (another PTA family friend and acting novice). It was everything Hoffman never knew he wanted. “I immediately was like, ‘Oh, I want to be in this room. I want to do whatever this is with you guys.’”
SEVERAL YEARS INTO HIS career, Hoffman has been welcomed by industry insiders and audiences alike — and has avoided one of the most damning characterizations a second-generation star can weather at the moment: nepo baby. It’s something he and his friend Michael Gandolfini, another son of a legendary departed actor, find so curious that they have a bit about it. “We’re like, ‘Yeah, these nepo babies are really the problem,’” Hoffman says, stifling laughter while he takes on an affected smoker’s drawl. “Nepo babies get so much shit on the internet and me and Michael get none of it! If our parents were alive we’d be fucking nepo through and through. I think people inherently feel bad because our dads passed away, so they’re a little bit like, ‘We’re not touching that.’”
Hoffman’s even dating a fellow child of stars, Thandiwe Newton’s daughter, Nico Parker, who he met on the set of Poetic License. “I had one really serious relationship that lasted for a little bit and for a good two years [after that], I was just dating to get out of heartbreak. At the end of that long road was Nico Parker,” he says, his freckled cheeks flushing. “She’s my partner in crime. She’s my best friend. She’s the person I go to when I have to make a decision about something. She’s a perfect person to go through this world with.”
Here is the draw of Hoffman’s work, live and in the flesh: sincerity. Whether he’s getting his heart broken by an older woman in Licorice Pizza or using his final moments to push a friend to victory in The Long Walk, Hoffman’s presence onscreen is candid and genuine. When he opens his mouth, you can’t help but believe him.
It’s a trait Apatow noticed while directing Poetic License. “He was so comfortable in the character that any changes we would make on the fly, nothing tripped him up,” she says. “Because he knew exactly who he was. He is so grounded. ”
In a Hollywood era that’s fueled by social media and intense public scrutiny, Hoffman is committed to keeping his priorities straight. “Art is one of the most important things in the world, and when I’m working, it is,” he says. “But I don’t want to give my life to this in the way that feels like I’m bleeding and dying. This almost self-harm thing, I find that to be really unattractive.”
“The industry is so different now,” he says, comparing today with the time when his dad was coming up. “I try to not play it as much as I can but there’s a game that’s happening in this economy. I don’t know how my dad would have done [Call Her Daddy]. I respect my dad’s career so much, and it’s been a real North Star for me. But I’m also realizing that I can’t do it that way, I have to figure out how to do it on my own.”
For the rest of his life, Hoffman will have strangers, loved ones, and audiences see traces of his father in his face and in his work. But he’s well aware that he can’t copy his father’s career — and he doesn’t want to. Instead, he seems determined to honor his dad’s memory by living a full life. One with career wins and transformative performances but also family, love, music, impossible game-winning tip-ins, big questions, delicious meals, and fucking fantastic movies.
“Great actors or directors or artists, they get to do what they want because of what they established in the Seventies or Nineties or whatever it is,” he says. “What is that in 2026? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. And whatever that leaves behind, will get left behind. I hope it’s good.”
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