Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Way back in 2001 I was in New York with the express purpose of attending THE SEAGULL, a free show in Central Park that was directed by Mike Nichols and starred everybody from John Goodman to Meryl Streep to Natalie Portman to Kevin Kline to Christopher Walken. To be very honest, the biggest draw for me was Walken.

It was a great trip... the play was great and the night camping out in Central Park for the free tickets was incredibly memorable. I got to see everybody leaving from the show and had the chance to talk to a very drunk John Goodman for a good 20 minutes.

In that show, playing the suicidal Konstantine was an actor who, at that time, was mostly known to me as Brant from THE BIG LEBOWSKI. I had seen some of Philip Seymour Hoffman's indie work at this point, but he wasn't the big draw for me.

He blew me away in the play and since the has become one of my favorite working actors.

Wow, that's a long way to say that some news hit this morning about Hoffman's directorial debut... sorry for the very long intro, but it's what sprung to mind, especially hearing his debut was a stage adaptation.

According to Variety Hoffman will co-star in and direct JACK GOES BOATING, with GONE BABY GONE and THE OFFICE's Amy Ryan co-starring and John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega reprising their roles from the stage. It is described as an unconventional romantic comedy (has Hoffman even done a conventional one?) involving cooking and swimming lessons and illegal drugs.

Overture Films will fund and it stars lensing next month in NYC. Now ya' know!