One of Hollywood’s greatest character actors, Philip Seymour Hoffman, 41, won a Best Actor Oscar in 2006 for his role as Truman Capote in Bennett Miller’s Capote. It’s only as much as he deserved for a 17-year career that has seen him work with some of US cinema’s finest auteurs – from Todd Solondz (Happiness) to David Mamet (State and Main), Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) and Spike Lee (The 25th Hour). Most notably, he has worked with Paul Thomas Anderson four times (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love), though the Rochester-born Hoffman has been in his fair share of mainstream films – from Twister to Along Came Polly and Mission: Impossible 3.

In his latest film, John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, from Miramax Films, he plays Father Flynn, a Brooklyn priest who is accused of inappropriate behavior with a pupil by a nun (Meryl Streep) at the Catholic School where they work. The film is something of a reunion for Hoffman, who already worked with Streep on Mike Nichols’ 2001 stage version of Chekhov’s The Seagull. He then went on to star with Amy Adams, who plays good-hearted nun Sister James, in Nichols’ 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War, for which he received the second Oscar nomination of his career. Below he discusses what it was like to reunite with old friends, and how he feels since winning an Oscar turned him into a celebrity.