Dustin Hoffman his seventh Academy Award nomination for his performance in "Wag The Dog" (1997), in a role that allowed Hoffman the chance to work with both Robert De Niro and Denis Leary. The movie is a black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson, who also directed Hoffman in "Rain Man" in 1988. The story takes place a few days before a presidential election, where a Washington, D.C. spin doctor (De Niro) distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer (Hoffman) to construct a fake war with Albania. Hoffman, as a caricature of real life
Philip Seymour Hoffman and precision," but the film earned little at the box office. Hoffman's second 2003 appearance was a small role in Anthony Minghella's successful Civil War epic "Cold Mountain". He played an immoral preacher, a complex character that Hoffman described as a "mass of contradictions". The same year, from April to August, he appeared with Vanessa Redgrave in a Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night". Director Robert Falls later commented on the dedication and experience that Hoffman brought to his role of alcoholic Jamie Tyrone: "Every night he ripped it up to an extent that he couldn't