Life at the Chelsea Hotel

Until July 1993, Hoffmann lived in Manhattan's Chelsea Hotel, which Hoffmann later said she enjoyed. According to Hoffmann, she and her best friend Talya Shomron roller-skated in the hallways, spied on the drug dealer across the hall, and persuaded the bellman to go to the neighborhood delicatessen at night to fetch them ice cream.^[10]

Hoffmann recalled, "I grew up in downtown New York in the '80s. I have a friend who grew up with me, and she puts it well. She says, 'If you grew up where we grew up, if you weren't an artist, a drag queen, queer, or a drug addict, then you were the freak.' I grew up in a world where I guess what is considered unusual or abnormal for the rest of America was very much considered the norm."^[16] She also reported in an interview that there had been gunfire and a rape at the hotel shortly before they moved out.^[11]

Hoffmann and her mother left the Chelsea Hotel after a long-standing dispute with the management that ended in eviction.^[11] Regardless, Hoffmann's connection to the hotel had a significant effect on her future. The idea for the 1994 sitcom Someone Like Me originated after Gail Berman (former president of Viacom's Paramount Pictures) read a New York Times article^[1] about the hotel which referred to a children's book that Viva and friend Jane Lancellotti wrote, Gaby at the Chelsea (a take on Kay Thompson's 1950s classic Eloise books). Berman became the show's producer.

Adolescence on the West Coast

After leaving the Chelsea when Hoffmann was 12,^[15] she and her mother moved to the west coast to a two-bedroom rented house in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, which was badly damaged in the January 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake. While regrouping their living situation, Hoffmann and her mother temporarily lived at The Oceana Suites Hotel in Santa Monica, California.

College and assorted jobs

After she graduated from Calabasas High School in 1999, Hoffmann followed her half-sister Alex's example and entered New York's Bard College to pursue a degree in literature and writing.^[11] Around 2001, she temporarily left her acting career to complete her studies and graduated in 2004; her senior thesis was a documentary film.^[11]

After college, she spent much of her 20s drifting. She interned with a chef in Italy, then trained to be a doula after helping deliver Alex's children. For a time, Hoffmann and a boyfriend lived in an old trailer in the Catskill Mountains.^[1]

Childhood acting career

Hoffmann began acting in commercials at the age of four to help pay the family bills. In 1989, she starred in her first movie, Field of Dreams, with Kevin Costner. 1989's Uncle Buck followed, working beside John Candy and up-and-coming child star Macaulay Culkin. However, she grew tired of the rigors of screen performance and temporarily retired. Nevertheless, upon hearing that Culkin (whom she disliked when they worked together^[11]) was making a lot of money in feature films, her "competitive spirit got the best of her", as she later put it, and she reentered the profession. She starred in This Is My Life (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993) with Tom Hanks, and The Man Without a Face with Mel Gibson.^[17] According to Hoffmann, the praise she received for her performance in This is My Life encouraged her to pursue a full-time acting career in Hollywood as it gave her the confidence she needed to handle major roles.^[17]

In 1994, Hoffmann starred in her own sitcom Someone Like Me (on NBC) about a young girl, Gaby, and her dysfunctional family. To promote it, Hoffmann appeared on late-night talk shows like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Show with David Letterman. Although generally well received, the series lasted only six episodes.

After Someone Like Me, Hoffmann won the lead role opposite Shelley Long in the 1995 TV film Freaky Friday, a remake of the 1976 film of the same name starring Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris. In the same year as Freaky Friday, Hoffmann starred as Young Samantha, the childhood counterpart to Demi Moore's character, in the coming-of-age feature film Now and Then.

In 1995, Hoffmann played Andrea Eagerton in the CBS TV film Whose Daughter Is She?.

Teen and college years: 1996–2003

Between 1996 and 2001, Hoffmann landed roles in several films including Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Volcano (1997), Snapped (1998), The Hairy Bird (1998), 200 Cigarettes (1999), Coming Soon (1999), Black & White (1999), You Can Count on Me (2000), and Perfume (2001).

Theatre work in New York: 2003–2007

Between 2003 and 2007, Hoffmann largely concentrated on a theatre career in New York. Roles included 24 Hour Plays (as Denise at the American Airlines Theatre), The Sugar Syndrome (Williamstown Theatre Festival – July/August 2005), and Third (Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater/Lincoln Center Theater – September – December 2005). In late 2005, she starred in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. She also appeared in the Broadway play Suburbia, alongside Kieran Culkin and Jessica Capshaw at the Second Stage Theatre on 43rd Street in New York City, which ran from September to October 2006. Hoffmann then returned to the 24 Hours Plays where she acted alongside Jennifer Aniston.

Return to film work: 2007–present

Since 2007, Hoffmann has made a gradual return to film acting. 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. Sherman was married to Hoffmann's stepfather, Michel Auder, from 1984 to 1999.^[18] Later in 2008, Hoffmann appeared in the documentary Chelsea on the Rocks, which is a tribute to the Chelsea Hotel where she grew up. Directed by Abel Ferrara, the documentary highlights the many personalities and artistic voices that have emerged from the legendary residence.

In 2009, Hoffmann had a supporting role in Todd Solondz's Life During Wartime, and the thriller 13 with Mickey Rourke (released in 2010).

Several years later, Hoffmann starred alongside Michael Cera in Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus (2013). While shooting the film in Chile, she and Cera took mescaline for her performance in a climactic scene.^[19]

Hoffmann has made guest appearances have been in the television series Louie and Girls in Season 3.^[20] Hoffmann also appeared in seasons 4 and 5 of Girls.^[16]

Hoffmann (bottom left). She is seen here with fellow cast members of Transparent in 2015

In 2013, she completed work on the lead role of a Web series entitled Lyle, created by Stewart Thorndike and Jill Soloway. It was shot in NYC. She subsequently acquired an apartment in Brooklyn's Fort Greene section.^[1] In October 2013, she starred in the 1910s installment of Vanity Fair's The Decades Series, "The First March", directed by Gilly Barnes.^[21]

Hoffmann has discussed her full frontal nude scenes in a few of her projects including Crystal Fairy, Girls and the Amazon series Transparent.^[22] On nudity, Hoffmann said: "People are obsessed with actresses being hairless, fatless Barbie dolls. They can’t imagine that people would want to be anything other than that. When they are, it's looked at as almost a political statement. Look at Lena Dunham. She is a gorgeous woman and people can't stop talking about how brave she is to show herself naked, which I find totally condescending and ridiculous. If Angelina Jolie was naked onscreen no one would say she was brave. The implication is that Lena's brave because she doesn't look the way she's supposed to look. I think that's a shame."^[23]

Joey Soloway wrote the role Hoffmann plays in Transparent for her after seeing her performance on Louis C.K.'s third season of Louie.^[24]

In 2016, she appeared in pre-recorded video as an onstage "stand-in" during Sia's Nostalgic for the Present concert tour, for the song "Unstoppable."^[25] Her performance is featured on the song's official music video, released in 2021.^[26]

Film

Television