A few years ago, no theme would have struck me as less stimulating for a movie than independent cinema. Probably by being too close to home, too mundan. But that encounter with Humbert Balsan and his death changed all that and gave me a completely different perspective on cinema. It occurred to me that a film about a producer could be a film about work, commitment, love and life.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is the director and star of "Jack Goes Boating," also starring Amy Ryan and John Ortiz. After premiering in the U.S. at Sundance in January, the film is being released by Overture Films later this year.

Jack Goes Boating is Hoffman’s first foray into feature film directing, but he is an accomplished stage director and brought those skills to the project. Hoffman had been interested in directing a film for some time, but taking on the dual roles of actor and director proved daunting.

You know I’m really nonplussed with actors. I don’t care who they are. It’s been the same since I was a child and I’ve never understood that fanaticism or that worship of fame. I looked at George Clooney as a collaborator. I respected his work and everything I’d heard about him as a man and as an actor was good. And he was absolutely great. He has such a warm presence and it’s easy to bask in it when you are working with him.

I related to this character more than in a few ways and when I started writing this screenplay, I was writing more as corporate satire, and over the six years it took me to write it, my life really evolved, I went from a single guy living in an apartment to a married guy with a daughter, a professional director living in a house with a mortgage, and my perspective just changed and inevitably, I had to write the character differently and start discussing the things that are important in life.