In The Master, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the charismatic founder of a spiritual movement he invented after World War II. His group claims to help practitioners free themselves from traumatic life experiences. Oh, and a boat is involved.
But Hoffman’s character, Lancaster Dodd, is definitely not a thinly-veiled version of L. Ron Hubbard. And his movement is definitely, definitely not a slightly altered spin on Scientology. Nope. Not at all.
The Oscar-winning actor said as much — early and often — in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal. In fact, he’d really appreciate if everyone would just stop it with all the Scientology stuff: “It’s not a Scientology movie. It’s something else,” he told writer Rachel Dodes. And that’s pretty much all he would say, despite Dodes’ efforts to, you know, interview him:
