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"I'm like a lot of people, I gamble in a casino a couple of times a year,  I lose a little money, I go home, I have a good time. But this movie isn't  about people like me. It's about a guy named Mahowny, based on a guy named  Molony, and this guy had problems."

 The movie is "Owning Mahowny," a drama or dark comedy, depending on how  you see it, based on the true story of Brian Molony. Molony was a Canadian  financial whiz so impressive he became the youngest VP in the buttoned--down history of his Toronto bank. During the week, he negotiated  loans to established customers; on the weekends, he jetted to Atlantic City, where he gambled away more than $10 million he embezzled from the bank.

"He was the guy," says Hoffman. "Everybody liked him. So he wasn't under  the scrutiny he should have been. And he took advantage of that."    If the second part of the description sounds like fired New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, the "he was the guy" part applies to Hoffman, who at 35 is one of the most in-demand character actors in movies. Though he  had small parts in three films after graduating from the drama program at  New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, he was still working in a  deli when he was cast in 1992's "Scent of a Woman."

 "And I've never been without an acting job since," says Hoffman, more matter-of-fact than boastful. "I've made 34 movies in about 10 years."  In the last two, however, Hoffman has moved out of supporting roles into being the guy the movie is about, first with "Love Liza," a movie written by his older brother, Gordy, and now with the lead in "Owning Mahowny." Hoffman says "it just seems like time" for him to take that step, but he  adds later that he doesn't expect to have his name above the title anytime  soon.

 "To me and guys like John C. Reilly, Sam Rockwell, it's about being  recognized for what you can do and not being pigeonholed as one thing or another. But I have no burning desire to be the lead in some action film, anyway, and that's what a Hollywood leading man is expected to do these  days," he says.

 "We all came up right at the end of a very enlightened period, when the studios were making films like 'Raging Bull,' 'Ordinary People.' When my  brother and I were kids, my dad would take us to see 'Butch Cassidy and    the Sundance Kid' and 'Paper Moon' at the drive-in, and my sensibility was  formed from that. Today, kids grow up looking at spam, you know? "But we wanted to be in movies that were worth seeing again. It's amazing  when people come up to me and tell me they've seen 'Magnolia' 10 times or  something, and I know it's not about me, it's about the piece. But it's  also about what me and everybody else in the movie contributed to that  piece."  Big parts, small parts  Hoffman says that being in nearly every frame of a movie like "Owning Mahowny" requires more "physical effort but the same amount of  preparation" as playing supporting roles in films like "Boogie Nights" or  "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

 "If you're doing it right, acting is hard, at least it is for me," he  says. "I get a script; I know if it's right for me if I start to worry about it -- how will I do this, how will I play that scene?    "In 'Mahowny' I had to play someone who seems to be pretty emotionally  distant, but inside he's living for the next rush, the next thrill. Dope  addicts describe it as having 'drug veins.' Everything else is just  waiting. Now, that's really interesting, but it's also lot harder than  playing someone whose true feelings are always coming out in dialogue or  something. There's no flash to this guy, but there's a lot of flash all  around him," Hoffman says.

 Director Anthony Minghella, who cast Hoffman as the devious, doomed  Freddie Miles in "The Talented Mr. Ripley," compares the actor to "a  musician who has most of the technique of his instrument mastered. "He's much more interested in what he can personally bring to a piece, how he can take a scene or his character to the next level of communication. He's gifted, of course, but he's always working at his craft. He never  coasts. And he makes interesting choices" Hoffman says that he's been tempted to make movies just for the experience of working with particular directors or actors but that he's learned to trust his instincts concerning scripts: "If they're not good to begin  with, they're not normally going to magically improve when you start  making the movie."

      But he has been in all four features directed by Paul Thomas Anderson,  including last year's "Punch-Drunk Love," and declares that whatever  "Paul's got going I'd probably want to be part of if he wanted me."     More opportunities.

These days, everybody wants him: In the next few months, he'll be seen in  Minghella's "Cold Mountain," a Civil War-era drama that also stars Jude    Law and Nicole Kidman, and in the indie film "The Sweet Spot." He's also  featured in a comedy currently titled "Captured," which he describes as being "as funny as anything I've ever read."

 "It's written by this guy John Hamburg, who wrote 'Meet the Parents' and  'Zoolander' and who just knows how to be funny I play the best friend of  Ben Stiller, who's married to Debra Messing but cheating with Jennifer  Aniston, and the whole shoot was just a riot.     "These are some seriously funny people, you know; they know their stuff,  so I was a little apprehensive. They usually call me when they want lonely  or sad. But I realized when we got started, it's still all about the emotion that's drives the scene, and the laughs come out of that. It's about staying human."