Source: Yahoo.com/entertainment
USA – Cooper Hoffman follows the love — quite literally for his upcoming feature “I Want Your Sex.”
Hoffman, who made his acting debut in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza,” is set to co-lead Gregg Araki‘s upcoming psychosexual thriller “I Want Your Sex.” Amid the trend of older woman, younger man romances, Hoffman plays the “sexual muse” of a renowned artist (Olivia Wilde). “I Want Your Sex” was announced in August 2024 and began production in Los Angeles in October 2024. The feature, which co-stars Charli xcx, is currently in post-production.
According to Hoffman, “I Want Your Sex” is a BDSM dominatrix drama — one that has a surprising overlap with his latest film, Simon West’s “Old Guy.” While “Old Guy” has Hoffman playing an assassin learning from an elder hitman (Christoph Waltz), “I Want Your Sex” also pits Hoffman alongside an older mentee … but for eroticism, rather than violence.
“All the movies I’ve done have, I think, been pretty drastically different,” Hoffman told IndieWire in a recent interview. “Now, I do everything to try to put myself in as uncomfortable of a position as I can. I think every actor would say that, but it really is true. I just did a movie with Olivia Wilde where she’s a dominatrix to me and that made me so uncomfortable. … I am someone who is very interested with the idea of what will love make you do. ‘I Want Your Sex’ is a really intense adventure that this person goes on because he’s in love.”
He added, “You can connect it to ‘Old Guy,’ [in] that my character lost a lot of love at a young age, and that drives [him] to kill people. Where does it all stem from? It tends to stem from either a place of trying to gain [love] or grieve the loss of love. Not that those two movies are anywhere similar, but I do think that human beings all kind of stem from one place.”
As Hoffman likens his passion for roles to being as enthused about a new lover, he wanted to put some distance between himself and “I Want Your Sex” after wrapping the feature. “I haven’t seen anything,” Hoffman said of Araki’s film. “Gregg does all these editing on his own. It’s just him in a room, locked in, and I think that I will be one of the last people to see it. It’s his baby now. To be honest, I don’t want to see it until it’s done. I don’t want to have any control over it. That’s a string you don’t want to pull on.”
Hoffman instead pointed to how working with co-star Wilde was one of the “fucking coolest” experiences he’s had on set (the actor also confirmed that there was an intimacy coordinator on the production). “I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of cool people. Olivia is one of my favorite scene partners ever,” Hoffman said. “She couldn’t have been more cool about all of it. She was protective of me in a nice way, but also knew when to let me be. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in crime.”
Hoffman told IndieWire that his experience on “Old Guy” has impacted how he approaches other films, like “I Want Your Sex.” “This was like the second movie I had ever done. I did ‘Licorice Pizza’ [in 2021] and then I did this, and this movie really kind of put me in my place a little bit, because I think I thought I knew what I was doing and I didn’t,” Hoffman said of “Old Guy,” adding that he filmed the action comedy when he had just turned 19.
Didn’t working with the iconic Anderson for a breakout lead turn in “Licorice Pizza” give Hoffman the confidence to bring to “Old Guy”? Not quite. “It was super intimidating to step onto that set and to act across [from] Christoph Waltz, who’s been doing it forever and knows exactly what he’s doing — and I didn’t,” he said.
Much like Wilde on “I Want Your Sex,” Waltz also mentored Hoffman. “I could not have gotten into that movie without him. He was so caring of me and he really respected me, but also knew that he knew more than me and that’s a nice balance,” Hoffman said. “Olivia had a similar balance, even though they’re very different people, but the similar kind of wanting to give information but also wanting me to figure it out on my own.”
While Hoffman decided on something of a whim to co-lead the film — which was his first-ever offer, as opposed to auditioning for the part — he most likely won’t do that in the future. “I was like, if Christoph Waltz is doing it and he wants me to do it, I’m game,” Hoffman said. “I don’t know what I want until it’s in front of me, honestly. I don’t have a specific part or a specific genre that I’m necessarily glued to or even like. I’ve just adored Christoph Waltz my whole life. He’s one of those actors that doesn’t miss, really. While shooting the movie, I realized the guy is just a textbook of knowledge.”
Hoffman continued, “By the way, I normally [now] don’t go by who’s attached. This is what I mean: I was so young. … I didn’t really register what I had to do. It is a hard job, and it was a very intense action movie with a character that had a lot of layers to him. Now, I look so much more at the character than I did at the time. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. It’s just about doing it more and knowing now.”
Hoffman, whose father is late icon Philip Seymour Hoffman, also resonated with his “Old Guy” character who finds a surrogate dad in Waltz’s role. “I really was drawn to the father figure side of it. I understand the anger towards an older father figure, and also understanding that you need them,” Hoffman said. “It was something that I was probably dealing with at my at the time of my life, and so that’s always a blessing when a script comes along that reflects how you’re feeling.”
“Old Guy” is hitting theaters after Hoffman’s turn in Jason Reitman’s buzzy “Saturday Night,” which he actually filmed after West’s film. And Hoffman said he didn’t really get to revel in the release of “Saturday Night,” due to filming “I Want Your Sex.”
“I didn’t do [much] press for ‘Saturday Night,’ and that is not anything against the movie, I was just working,” he said. “I had the privilege of working at the time, but oh my God, I was so jealous. I remember all of them going to to Telluride, literally everyone but me went to Telluride and TIFF and I was in Canada [filming]. I was so jealous because that cast is so fun to be around. They’re all very funny, entertaining people, and I was very much bummed about it.”
Hoffman was a bit surprised that there wasn’t a “Saturday Night” moment on the real “SNL,” though, especially given the 50th anniversary celebrations. “We haven’t done anything with ‘SNL.’ I think maybe we all thought we were going to do more,” Hoffman said. “It’s not the movie is not in any way a reflection of what ‘SNL’ is today. It’s a time capsule of a different time, of what it was.”
Among his funny and entertaining “Saturday Night” co-stars: Andrew Feldman, with whom Hoffman will reunite for Maude Apatow’s directorial debut “Poetic License.” Hoffman confirmed that he just finished shooting the feature.
Hoffman will next star in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” director Francis Lawrence’s Stephen King adaptation, “The Long Walk.” The ensemble film is set in a dystopian America that has a Long Walk competition in which 50 teenage boys walk without rest.
“David Jonsson, who just won at the BAFTAs [for the Rising Star award] is in it, and he’s the fucking coolest as well. And that movie is awesome,” Hoffman said. “I’ve made some really good friends on that. All those guys are super legit. Charlie Plummer is in it, who is the fucking best and has become a very close friend.”
Off-screen, Hoffman is completely immersed in — and arguably smitten with — his off-Broadway play “The Curse of the Starving Class.” The Sam Shepard production stars Calista Flockhart and Christian Slater as Hoffman’s character’s parents, with Stella Marcus playing his younger sister.
“I’ve never stepped on a stage before,” Hoffman said of making his off-Broadway debut. “This play is ridiculous, and in a great way. It’s about a dysfunctional family, and about this son becoming his dad. It’s Sam Shepard, it’s beautifully written, it’s like you don’t have to do a lot of work. You kind of just rely on the words. I mean, I’m joking when you say I don’t have to do a lot of work. It’s all-consuming. It’s ridiculous. […] I was realizing that I talk about this play the way I talk about a girlfriend; it’s all I talk about and it is insane. It takes up all your time. It’s the only thing you think about.”
What else is Hoffman thinking about? Perhaps making more career firsts, like directing like Apatow? Not quite. “Oh God, I don’t know,” he said. “There’s so many cool things happening with young people. I feel like I only work with people who are older than me. I think I gravitate towards older people. I would love to direct in some way. I’d love to do everything, but I always say I’ll stop acting when I want to stop acting. I’m doing it because it’s the thing I want to do right now, and I have that privilege of being able to be a working actor. But the second that I don’t want to do it…again, not to talk about it like a girlfriend, but there is something to it. It’s, like, when I’m when I’m ready to break up, I’ll break up and go try to find another love.”
Hoffman continued, “I think that right now, the thing that I’m the most interested in [is acting]. You’ll get told by a bunch of actors that you’ll never figure it out and so like that kind of is terrifying, but also it’s kind of nice because you’ll just always want to keep doing it and like the older I get, I hope I get like [different roles]. I can’t wait to play a dad one day. I can’t wait to play the boss of somebody. That’s also exciting, and I do think that comes with age and living life and doing all these things. I could rant to you for an eternity about letting yourself age into different roles. That’s exciting to me.”
An The Avenue release, “Old Guy” will be in select theaters and available on digital on Friday, February 21.
