1. Lancaster Dodd/The Master in The Master
The second Paul Thomas Anderson role on this list, Philip Seymour Hoffman's eponymous role as The Master is one of the most captivating and ultimately terrifying portraits of a man ever committed to celluloid. The Master is a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher, but above all he is a man, so he says. The Master revolves around a peculiar relationship which develops between Joaquin Phoenix's Freddie Quell and Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd, a.k.a The Master - the front man and leader of a developing cult. While reviews for The Master ranged from the baffled to the astonished, one thing remained consistent across the board: praise for Hoffman and Phoenix's performances. Phoenix aggressively surges his way from one scene to the next while Hoffman, on the surface, portrays a calm, collected and socially adept orator. However, as the film unfolds the calm exterior of Hoffman's The Master begins to crumble. Furious outbursts at those questioning his authority begin to seep out with visceral force in ways which reflect Freddie Quill's own aggression; revealing the characters' operation as two sides of the same coin. Hoffman's low, rumbly and slightly crackled voice lends every line of dialogue a hypnotic quality which commands attention and exudes a powerful dynamism. Hoffman is able to say a multitude of different things, conveying a sea of conflicting emotions, in the inflection of his smile or the aversion of his gaze. Rarely do performances reach such peaks of nuanced subtlety, particularly not when they're utilised to depict the raw, potent energy of a character. Recalling the almost mystical on-screen performances of a young Marlon Brando, Hoffman is able to convey so much by doing very little. One gets the impression that this is a performance which will be talked about for years to come, and rightly so. Within The Master Philip Seymour Hoffman poetically cements his status as the master of his trade. He has been a homosexual camera man in the porn industry, a pedantic butler, a megalomaniacal arms dealer, and a struggling playwright but above all, he is an actor and a damned fine one at that.