“Everything about his body language just reeked of Capote”

Richard Corman recalls how he summoned the spirit of Avedon to shoot Philip Seymour Hoffman for the Capote poster

- Natalie Denton

Richard Corman is responsible for photographing some of the world’s most recognisable faces of the last 30 years, including Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Michael Jordan, Ralph Lauren, Muhammad Ali, Kurt Vonnegut and Madonna. In 2005, he created what is perhaps one of his most celebrated and seminal images to date; a shot of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, in character as the novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor Truman Capote. Corman’s picture of Hoffman was commissioned for the poster for multi award winning biopic Capote, and was shot in the style of his mentor Richard Avedon, who had photographed the real Truman Capote during the 1960s.

The movie, set in 1959, follows Capote as he researches the murder of a Kansas family for his novel In Cold Blood and delves into the relationship he forms with one of the killers, Perry Smith, who is on death row. The film was universally lauded, catapulting Hoffman to the pinnacle of his career, scooping a bounty of best actor gongs including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

AVEDON’S MO

“The film’s director Bennett Miller came to me, because they knew that I had apprenticed Avedon for a couple of years and wanted me to do something that was really reminiscent of that time when Dick [Avedon] was photographing Capote during the 1960s,” explains Corman.