Cooper Hoffman had never wanted to act. In elementary school, he joined in the plays but only helped out backstage. When it was time for cast and crew to take a bow, he remembers staying as far out of view as he could, or hiding in the bathroom.
But the very first time that Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, read in a casual, let’s-just-see, not-really-official audition for “Licorice Pizza” with writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson and his eventual co-star Alana Haim something clicked.
