We like to read a lot of news over there at The Drunk Gnome, and we can’t help but notice all the articles floating around about the death of human actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s a bummer, really it is. But none of him knew the dude personally, so that’s about all we had to say on the matter.
Until…
We discovered that he once played the role of a gnome.
I came across James Urbaniak’s Slate article, “What I Learned from Losing a Role to Philip Seymour Hoffman“, the other day. Apparently James read for a role of Gene the Gnome in Richard Greenburg’s 1999 The Author’s Voice.
According to James, this was “a one-act Cyrano pastiche about a young playwright, his female editor, and the “horribly twisted gnome” who lives in his closet and ghostwrites his plays.”
Horribly twisted gnome? Yeah, we can get on board with that.
James said, “Gene the Gnome seemed a natural for me; I prided myself on having a corner on weirdo intellectual outcasts.” However, James didn’t get the role, Hoffman did.
Has anyone out there seen The Author’s Voice? We’re gonna have to seek out this play for the sole reason of seeing this great actor play a gnome. Even if he isn’t intending to depict a true gnome in the literal sense. Whatever, we’ll take it because it simply sounds badass.
R.I.P. dude,
Harrison the Gnome