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Phillip Seymour Hoffman rocks the boat on 'Pirate Radio'

By
CAHIR O'DOHERTY,
Irish Voice Reporter

Published Thursday, November 12, 2009, 12:53 PM
Updated Friday, November 13, 2009, 11:33 AM

 

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Philip Seymour Hoffman stars in Richard Curtis' rock and roll comedy 'Pirate Radio.'
Photo by Alex Bailey

Video / Watch the 'Pirate Radio' trailer / Click here

'Pirate Radio,' the immensely likeable new comedy by 'Four Weddings and A Funeral' and 'Notting Hill' writer and director Richard Curtis, features Academy Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in a role that’s a welcome departure from the much heavier dramas he excels at.

In the new comedy flick, which opens Friday, Seymour Hoffman plays The Count, a quicksilver American D.J. who helps brings rock and roll to the masses aided by his eccentric British D.J. pals on board a pirate radio ship anchored far out in the North Sea in the 1960’s.

When young Carl (played by up and coming British star Tom Sturridge) comes aboard the old tanker, he discovers a freewheeling world of hippies, artists and freethinkers that transform his life in a heartbeat.

As the fast talking, quick thinking Count, we see a playful side to Seymour Hoffman (who’s mother is Marilyn O'Connor, the lawyer and civil rights activist) that has been under served in the dramas that have made his name, from his Academy Award-winning turn in Capote, to his work opposite Meryl Streep in Irish American playwright John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt.

“I read the script and I thought it was really funny,” Seymour Hoffman tells IrishCentral. “It was also oddly moving, because rock and roll is actually that important. That’s the very subversive message of this movie, that these guys were the conduits to bring that art, that music, to the people. These were the guys who did it.”

Naturally the rock music of the period is an integral part of the film, and the screen comes alive with blasts of The Kinks, The Turtles, The Who and Jimi Hendrix, among many others. It’s the pop music of an era that Seymour Hoffman obviously loves, but don’t ask him to talk about it from personal experience.

“I wasn’t very familiar with the story of pirate radio in Britain in the 1960’s. I was born in 1967, so I was a baby around the time this film is taking place. But I do remember hearing all that music from the back of the car when I was six in 1973. Sitting there without a seatbelt on, with the people in the front smoking. Listening to all the music that you hear in this film.”

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