SCREEN GEM: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s limited TV resume includes a 1991episode of “Law & Order” (above).
SCREEN GEM: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s (above) limited TV resume includes a 1991 episode of “Law & Order” (inset). (Getty Images)
Another A-list movie star is making the jump to the small screen.
Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (“Capote”) has signed on to star in a new Showtime series called “Trending Down,” according to multiple reports. And it’s not even a meaty dramatic role — it’s a comedy.
Showtime is expected to announce “Trending Down” today during its presentation at the TV Critics press tour in LA.
Hoffman, who will executive-produce the series with creator Shalom Auslander (NPR’s “This American Life”), will play the lead role of Thom Payne, whose advertising agency is taken over, leaving him “facing his own obsolescence.” His wife, Lee, will be played by Kathryn Hahn (“Anchorman”).
“Trending Down” will be the first regular TV gig for the respected actor, who appeared on a 1991 episode of “Law & Order” and in HBO’s “Empire Falls” — and who’s at the height of his career, having received an Oscar nomination just last year for “The Master.”
But downsizing to the small screen isn’t the sign of movie failure it used to be. And Hoffman will be in good company.
John Malkovich is heading to NBC to star in the mid-season action-adventure series “Crossbones,” playing notorious English pirate Blackbeard, while Julia Ormond will star in “Witches of East End” this October on Lifetime.
And Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson will play homicide detectives on HBO’s “True Detective,” slated for early 2014.
Hoffman and this new group will be joining a crew of movie stars who’ve already made a successful leap to TV.
Kevin Bacon’s first season of “The Following” was a hit on Fox, as was “New Girl,” starring indie movie princess Zooey Deschanel. Claire Danes has already nabbed an Emmy for her her work on Showtime’s “Homeland,” while Kevin Spacey just received an Emmy nod for his role in the Netflix drama “House of Cards.”
“These TV projects on networks like Showtime and Netflix, they’re great characters, they’re complex storylines. So, I think they’re really top-rate projects,” says Brad Adgate, director of research at Horizon Media.
“Second of all, these [projects] are not full-time commitments,” he says. “They’re limited-run — 10, 12 or 13 episodes — so the actors still have time to do movies, they can still do a show on Broadway or even do another TV series.”
A fancy big-screen star isn’t always enough to make a TV show work. For every Bacon, there’s a Dustin Hoffman, who couldn’t save HBO’s ill-fated “Luck” — canceled after just one season — or Laura Dern, whose “Enlightened” was canned after only two seasons.
But Adgate says that pay-cable channels or streaming networks, like Netflix, are unlikely to cancel a series mid-season — and the real winners are the viewers.
“This could be the second ‘Golden Age’ of TV,” he says, “driven by these types of shows and these big talents.”