Before They Were Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman on “Law & Order: The Supercut”

It’s become a fun tradition here at The Back Row for me to do “Before They Were Stars” features on the Academy Award nominees shortly after they’ve been announced. Since Philip Seymour Hoffman garnered his fourth career Oscar nomination this year for his performance in The Master, I made a concerted effort to find footage of his first appearance in front of a camera in a 1991 episode of Law & Order. It turns out a brief clip of him can be found in this Supercut entitled “Celebrities on Law & Order“, and you know The Back Row loves its Supercuts. Hoffman looks so different that I actually had to go through this Supercut more than once to spot him, but you can find him at the 1:32 mark. While many of these celebrities appeared on Law & Order after they were already famous, there are a couple more “Before They Were Stars” moments in this Supercut, so see how many other future celebrities you can spot. It’s worth noting that another Academy Award nominee from this year, Bradley Cooper, also pops up in the Supercut, and the brief clip of the still-relatively-unknown-at-the-time Samuel L. Jackson is actually from the exact same 1991 episode Hoffman appeared in.