Gaby Hoffmann
Gabrielle Mary Antonia Hoffmann is an American film and television actress best known for her roles on Sleepless in Seattle, Now and Then, Transparent and Girls, which garnered her nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2015, respectively. Additionally, she is remembered as a child actress from the films Field of Dreams, Uncle Buck, Now and Then, and Volcano.
Early life
Hoffmann was born in New York City, New York. Her mother, Viva, is an actress, writer and former Warhol superstar, and her father, Anthony Herrera, was a soap opera actor best known for his role as James Stenbeck from As the World Turns. Viva and Herrera were estranged shortly after Hoffmann's birth; she was raised by her mother at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. Her father did not have a significant presence in her life. Hoffmann's birth is documented in Brigid Berlin's The Andy Warhol Diaries. An entry dated January 10, 1982, two days after Hoffmann was born, says that a friend of Warhol's telephoned Warhol and told him that they were going to the Chelsea Hotel to see Viva and her new baby.Hoffmann's mother was raised in a devout Catholic family on Long Island, the daughter of an attorney. She was previously married to director Michel Auder in 1969. Hoffmann has a half-sister, Alexandra "Alex" Auder, who is 11 years older and teaches yoga in New York City. Hoffmann's father was raised in Wiggins, Mississippi by his maternal grandparents. Herrera died in 2011 from cancer.
Hoffmann attended elementary school in Manhattan at P.S. 3 on Hudson Street in the West Village, then another school in Hell's Kitchen. After she moved to Los Angeles in 1994, she attended the Buckley School, before finally graduating from Calabasas High School in 1999.
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 would roller-skate in the hallways, spy on the drug dealer across the hall, and persuade the bellman to go to the neighborhood delicatessen at night to fetch them ice cream.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." She also reported in an interview that there had been gunfire and a rape at the hotel shortly before they moved out.
Hoffmann and her mother left the Chelsea Hotel after a long-standing dispute with the management that ended in eviction. Regardless, Hoffmann's connection to the hotel resulted in a significant effect on her future. The idea for the 1994 sitcom Someone Like Me originated after Gail Berman read a New York Times article about the hotel which referred to a children's book that Viva and friend Jane Lancellotti wrote, Gaby at the Chelsea. Berman became the show's producer.
Adolescence on the West Coast
When Hoffmann was 11 years old, after leaving the Chelsea, Hoffmann 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. Around 2001, she temporarily left her acting career to complete her studies and graduated in 2004; her senior thesis was a documentary film.After college, she spent much of her 20s drifting. She interned with a chef in Italy, and 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.
Career
Childhood acting career
Hoffmann began her acting career at the age of four to help pay the family bills by acting in commercials. 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 was making a lot of money in feature films, her "competitive spirit got the best of her", as she later put it, and she re-entered the profession. She went on to star in This Is My Life, Sleepless in Seattle 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 a full-time acting career in Hollywood as it gave her the confidence she needed to handle major roles.In 1994, Hoffmann starred in her own sitcom Someone Like Me about a young girl, Gaby, and her dysfunctional family. Although generally well received, the show only lasted six 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.
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 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, Volcano, Snapped, The Hairy Bird, 200 Cigarettes, Coming Soon, Black & White, You Can Count on Me, and Perfume.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, The Sugar Syndrome, and Third. In late 2005, she starred in an episode of . 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 Hoffman's stepfather, Michel Auder, from 1984 to 1999. 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.
More recently, Hoffmann has starred alongside Michael Cera in Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus. While shooting the film in Chile, she and Cera took mescaline for her performance in a climactic scene.
Recent guest appearances have been in the television series Louie and Girls in Season 3. Hoffmann also appeared in seasons 4 and 5 of Girls.
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. In October 2013, she starred in the 1910s installment of Vanity Fair's The Decades Series, "The First March", directed by Gilly Barnes.
Hoffmann has discussed her full frontal nude scenes in a few of her recent projects including Crystal Fairy, Girls and the Amazon series Transparent. 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."
Jill Soloway wrote the role Hoffmann plays in Transparent for her after seeing her performance on Louis C.K.'s third season of Louie.
In 2016 she appeared in video as an onstage "stand-in" during the Nostalgic For the Present concert tour of Australian singer Sia Furler for her song, "Unstoppable."
Personal life
Hoffmann has a daughter, born in 2014, with longtime boyfriend, cinematographer Chris Dapkins. She lives in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn.Hoffmann endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for President in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Filmography
Film
Television
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Production | Result |
| 1990 | Young Artist Award | Best Young Actress Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | Field of Dreams | |
| 1993 | Young Artist Award | Best Young Actress Under Ten in a Motion Picture | This Is My Life | |
| 1994 | Young Artist Award | Best Youth Actress Co-Starring in a Motion Picture Drama | ||
| 1995 | Young Artist Award | Best Youth Comedienne in a TV Show | Someone Like Me | |
| 1996 | Young Artist Award | Best Performance by a Young Ensemble – Feature Film or Video | Now and Then | |
| 1997 | YoungStar Award | Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy Film | Everyone Says I Love You | |
| 2014 | Independent Spirit Award | Best Female Lead | Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus | |
| 2015 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series | Girls | |
| 2015 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series | Transparent | |
| 2016 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series | Transparent | |
| 2016 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series | Transparent |