Gaby Hoffmann
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Gabriella Mary Hoffmann (born January 8, 1982 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) is an American actress. Hoffmann’s mother, Viva Hoffmann (aka Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann), is an actress and writer and appeared in many of Andy Warhol's movies during the 1960s.
Hoffmann also has a half-sister, Alexandra Auder, who is eleven years older than her and who also once worked as an actress before becoming a yoga teacher and author. Prior to Hoffmann’s birth, Alexandra wanted a little sister so badly that she and her mother Viva prayed at a shrine in Portugal for Viva to have another baby. Not long afterwards, Gaby came along. In her autobiography "Famous for 15 Minutes: My Years With Andy Warhol," Isabelle Collin Dufresne (known as 'Ultra Violet' and who was a member of Warhol’s 'Factory' clique along with Hoffmann’s mother Viva) says that Gaby's father was a soap opera actor who denied paternity. She did not name him. Hence, Hoffmann’s last name is her mother's maiden name. Viva had Gaby relatively late as she was 44 when Gaby was born. Gaby’s birth is documented in Brigid Berlin's “The Andy Warhol Diaries”. An entry dated the 10th January 1982, two days after Gaby was born, says that a friend of Warhol’s calls Warhol up and tells him that they are going to the Chelsea Hotel to see Viva and her new baby (i.e. Gaby).
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Early life at the Chelsea Hotel
Until 1993, Hoffmann had lived in the well known Chelsea Hotel (a conglomeration of residential apartments rather than a hotel as one would normally understand the conventional term) in New York City all her life which Hoffmann later said she really enjoyed. According to Hoffmann, she and her best friend Talya Shomron would roller-skate in the hallways, spy on the drug dealer across the hall, and persuade the bellman to go to the neighbourhood deli at night and get them ice cream. The Chelsea Hotel is where the poet Dylan Thomas would have died had he not been taken in a coma to a nearby hospital and where Nancy Spungen did die in the bathroom of the room she shared with Sex Pistol boyfriend Sid Vicious. Gaby and her mother left the Chelsea Hotel in July 1993 after a dispute of long standing with the management, but the hotel ended up featuring prominently in Hoffmann’s future. The idea for her 1994 sitcom Someone Like Me came after Gail Berman (now president of Viacom's Paramount Pictures), the shows producer, read a New York Times article about the Hotel which referred to a children's book which Viva and friend Jane Lancellotti wrote entitled ‘Gaby at the Chelsea’ (a take on Kay Thompson’s 1950’s classic Eloise books). After leaving the Chelsea Hotel, Hoffmann and her mother (and their 2 Eskimo dogs) moved to live in a 2 bedroomed rental house in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California which ended up being badly damaged in a January 1994 earthquake.
Early Acting Career
Hoffmann began her acting career at the early age of 4 to help pay the family bills by acting in commercials. However, she tired of the tough schedules and temporarily retired. Nevertheless, upon hearing that Macaulay Culkin was making a lot of money from his movies her "competitive spirit got the best of her" as she later put it and she re-entered the profession. In 1989, she starred in her debut movie, Field of Dreams, with Kevin Costner. She followed this up with 1989’s Uncle Buck with John Candy, and then went onto star in This is My Life (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993) with Tom Hanks and The Man Without a Face with Mel Gibson. According to Hoffmann, it was the praise she received for her performance in This is My Life which encouraged her to pursue an acting career in Hollywood full time as it gave her the confidence she needed to handle major roles
Someone Like Me (1994)
In 1994, Hoffmann landed the starring role in her own sitcom Someone Like Me (on NBC) about a young girl, Gaby (played by Hoffmann), and her dysfunctional family, including her fresh-out-of-prison older sister, played by Nikki Cox. Although generally well received, the show only lasted 6 episodes. Publicity work for the show included personal appearances by Hoffmann on late night talk shows like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Show with David Letterman.
Freaky Friday (1995)
After Someone Like Me, Hoffmann won the lead role in the TV film Freaky Friday, a remake of the 1976 film of the same name starring Jodie Foster. In the film, schoolgirl Annabelle Andrews (Hoffmann) and her mother (played by Shelley Long) both believe that the other has too easy a life. On an ordinary Friday morning they both complain to each other about it and wish that they could be the other for just a day. As they secretly make their wishes simultaneously, due to some magic they suddenly switch bodies. Consequently, they both have a “Freaky Friday”. The film is generally regarded as being on a par with the Jodie Foster version and the later 2003 Lindsay Lohan remake. Hoffmann received very good reviews for her performance and by this time she was regarded as one of the best child actresses of her generation. Later in 1995, Hoffmann would star as the object of a custody battle in the 1995 CBS TV film Whose Daughter Is She?
Now and Then (1995)
Hoffmann's performance in the 1995 film Now and Then is generally regarded as her best performance to date. It also starred Thora Birch, Christina Ricci, Demi Moore, Rosie O'Donnell, Rita Wilson and Melanie Griffith. Directed by Lesli Linka Glatter, the film is about four friends who have been so preoccupied with their own lives that they have not seen one another for some time until the impending birth of one of their babies reunites them. Upon reuniting, they reminisce about events during the summer of 1970 when they were 12 which were ultimately influential in shaping their lives. It was during that summer, a mixture of both happy and sad events, that they realized that adulthood was fast approaching, that they began to work out what life was about and what they wished to do with their own lives. They also promised to be there for another, hence the reason why they were reuniting for the birth of the baby. The film, a female take on the film Stand By Me, was an enormous success, earning Hoffman great critical acclaim for her performance.
A Period of Consolidation (1996-2000)
Between 1996-2000, Hoffmann landed lead roles in several important films including Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Volcano (1997), Snapped (1998), 200 Cigarettes (1999), Coming Soon (1999), Black & White (1999), You Can Count on Me (2000), and Perfume (2001). Her best performance during this period is generally regarded to be her role as Odette in All I Wanna Do (1998), which also starred Kirsten Dunst and Rachael Leigh Cooke.Template:Fact The film (released as Strike! in some parts of the world and The Hairy Bird in others) is a comedy about an all-girls school during the 1960s where the students protest about the proposed admittance of boys.
University
In 1999, Hoffmann went to University and began a degree in literature at Bard College, New York. From 2001, she put her acting career on hold to enable her to complete the degree and she graduated in 2003.
Career since 2003
Since 2003, Hoffmann has largely concentrated on a theatre career in New York. Recent theatre work includes roles in 24 Hour Plays (as Denise at the American Airlines Theatre), The Sugar Syndrome (Williamstown Theatre Festival - July/August 2005: played 17-year-old Dani who surfed internet chat rooms searching for someone who is honest and direct. Instead, what she found was a man twice her age who thought she was an 11-year-old boy) and Third (Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre/Lincoln Centre Theatre - September - December 2005: played Emily Imbrie, an estranged daughter). In late 2005, she starred in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. She also appeared in the Broadway play Suburbia, as Sooze, a wannabe artist, alongside Kieran Culkin and Jessica Capshaw at the Second Stage Theatre on 43rd St in New York City which ran from September - October 2006. The play was about a day in the life of seven rootless young Americans who hang out every night in the parking lot of a Pakistani family's convenience store. The return of their high school friend, Pony (now a successful rock singer with a video on MTV), sparks a night of drinking, sex and violence as the friends air their resentments and examine the choices they've made. Hoffmann recently returned to the 24 Hours Plays where she acted alongside Jennifer Aniston. In 2007, she starred in the film Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America. In 2008, she appeared in Guest of Cindy Sherman, a documentary on art-scene commentator Paul Hasegawa-Overacker's relationship with enigmatic photographer Cindy Sherman. Later in 2008, Hoffmann will appear in the documentary Chelsea on the Rocks, which is a tribute to the Chelsea Hotel where she grew up. Made by Abel Ferrara, the documentary highlights the many personalities and artistic voices that have emerged from the legendary residence.
Selected filmography
- Perfume (2001) as Gabrielle Mancini
- You Can Count On Me (2000) as Sheila
- Black and White (1999) as Raven
- Coming Soon (1999) as Jenny Simon
- Snapped (1998) as Tara Rosenthaw
- 200 Cigarettes (1999) as Stephie
- Strike! (1998) as Odette "Odie" Sinclair
- Volcano (1997) as Kelly Roark
- Everyone Says I Love You (1996) as Lane Dandridge
- Now and Then (1995) as Young Samantha Albertson
- Whose Daughter is She? (1995) as Andrea Eagerton
- Freaky Friday (1995) (TV) as Annabelle Andrews
- The Man Without a Face (1993) as Megan Norstadt
- Sleepless in Seattle (1993) as Jessica
- This is My Life (1992) as Opal Ingels
- Uncle Buck (1989) as Maizy Russell
- Field of Dreams (1989) as Karin Kinsella
