Sarah wrote earlier this week about Hustlers, the movie based on The Hustlers at Scores who scammed the wealthy men patronising the establishment. With casting now complete, filming is underway – here’s Constance Wu in costme today in New York fully looking the part. This is not Rachel Chu. This is french manicures and eyelashes and tight pants and fur-trimmed cheap coats and chunky red highlights.
But I’m looking at that binder.
That’s probably her script, her notes, her workbook. And one of the photos stuck into the back flap – looks to me like it’s a shot of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Is it? Because my mind went right to PSH in Boogie Nights. Philip Seymour Hoffman was great in everything but, my GOD, he was f-cking unreal in Boogie Nights as Scottie J. He was everyone who’s ever had a crush and been rejected as Scottie J. He broke our hearts as Scottie J. And when he’s by himself, sitting in the car, after Marky Mark lets him down, that scene is about as raw as it gets.
Maybe this has nothing to do with Constance’s preparation for her role in Hustlers. Maybe that’s not even Philip Seymour Hoffman. But if it is, and if in some way PSH in Boogie Nights is part of her character study or emotional tuning for the part, I’m now even more interested in this project – and I was already all the way in.
If you want to revisit it, if you have it in you today, and I get it if you don’t because this is, as they say, a gut punch, it’s worth the two minutes.
