There I am, watching Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of my favourite

Host: The studio was a wreck of light and laughter — the kind of place where the lines between fiction and reality had long since blurred. The set lights blazed like miniature suns, casting hard shadows on half-built walls, a snow machine spat fake flakes into the air, and someone had left a tray of half-eaten cookies beside a camera rig.

It was well past midnight, but no one had gone home. The crew was wired on caffeine and adrenaline; the actors, that strange mix of exhaustion and immortality that only comes from pretending to be someone else for a living.

Jack sat in the corner of the soundstage, his coat thrown over a folding chair, a script forgotten in his lap. Jeeny stood a few feet away, leaning against a stack of prop crates, her arms crossed, her eyes following the chaos with quiet fascination.

Somewhere near the fake fireplace, a man in a red velvet suit — the man — Philip Seymour Hoffman, or someone playing him, or perhaps just the ghost of a memory — burst into laughter, booming and real, the kind of laughter that filled a room without permission.

Jeeny: smiling faintly “You know, Tom Sturridge once said, ‘There I am, watching Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of my favourite actors in the world, walk into the room dressed up as Father Christmas, being hilarious, and I'm suddenly thinking, “Where am I?”’”

Host: Her voice cut through the sound of cables clinking, crew shouting, fake snow falling — a small, lucid moment in the middle of beautiful absurdity.

Jack: half-laughs “That’s the business, isn’t it? You chase truth through fiction until you can’t tell which one’s the disguise.”

Jeeny: “And then, sometimes, the disguise is the truth.”

Host: Jack watched as the man in the Santa suit — the embodiment of joy — danced with an extra in a cheap elf costume, both of them laughing until they could barely stand. The director clapped. The crew cheered. For a moment, the entire world was a comedy written by chaos and funded by caffeine.

Jack: “You ever get that feeling? That dizzy, split-second sense that the universe is running on satire? You look around and think — this can’t be real. This can’t possibly be what life looks like.”

Jeeny: “All the time. But that’s the thing — reality is ridiculous. We just forget that we’re allowed to find it funny.”

Host: The snow machine coughed, spat out one last wave of flakes, and fell silent. A momentary hush. Hoffman wiped the sweat from his forehead, his face still half Santa, half philosopher, and grinned at the chaos he’d just made.

Jeeny: “I think that’s what Sturridge was talking about. The surreal beauty of the moment — seeing someone you admire, someone larger than life, suddenly dressed like a cartoon and being utterly, joyfully human. It’s the holy absurd.”

Jack: “Holy absurd. I like that.”

Jeeny: “Because it’s the only honest reflection of us. We try so hard to make art profound, but half of it’s just beautiful nonsense that somehow tells the truth.”

Jack: “Like Santa suits in July.”

Jeeny: “Or actors crying on cue over plastic snow.”

Host: The lights dimmed, signaling another take. The room fell into an expectant silence, that electric pause before art begins again. Hoffman took his mark, his face shifting from joy to gravity in an instant — the professional alchemy of turning chaos into meaning.

Jack: “You know what I love about actors like him? He never hid behind the performance. He used it. He could make even a costume feel like confession.”

Jeeny: “That’s why people loved him. Because he reminded us that vulnerability could wear any mask — even a red velvet one.”

Host: The director’s voice boomed from behind the monitor: “All right, people, let’s make some movie magic!” And just like that, the world was in motion again — lights, camera, humanity.

Jeeny: “You ever miss it, Jack? The insanity? The constant shifting between who you are and who you’re pretending to be?”

Jack: smiles tiredly “Sometimes. But only the moments like this — when the absurdity felt like revelation.”

Jeeny: “Because that’s when you felt alive?”

Jack: “Because that’s when I forgot to pretend.”

Host: The scene began, but neither of them watched it. Instead, they sat there, surrounded by the manufactured snow and the hum of creation, and let the irony wash over them — that sometimes the fakest places held the truest emotions.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny, I think every artist has a moment like Sturridge’s — when the world tilts, and you suddenly realize you’re standing in a dream you didn’t know you were living.”

Jeeny: “And it’s both terrifying and wonderful.”

Jack: “Exactly. Because you realize that art isn’t about escaping reality. It’s about exposing it — the madness, the joy, the sheer absurdity of being alive.”

Jeeny: “And the miracle of still finding it beautiful.”

Host: The fake snow kept falling, the actors kept pretending, the crew kept filming — and yet, beneath it all, something real pulsed. The recognition that every mask hides a truth, and every truth wears a mask.

Jack: “So maybe that’s what ‘Where am I?’ really means. Not confusion, but clarity. The sudden awareness that the moment you’re in — no matter how strange — is the only one that’s truly real.”

Jeeny: “And the only thing you can do is live it — even if it’s dressed as Father Christmas.”

Host: They laughed, quietly, together — the laughter of people who had both seen the beauty in absurdity and the absurdity in beauty.

Outside, the dawn had begun to break over the Los Angeles skyline, soft light bleeding through the smog. The studio lights switched off one by one, until the last bulb flickered, then died, leaving only the pale natural glow of morning.

Jeeny: whispering “You see that? The real world creeping back in.”

Jack: “Yeah. And for once, it doesn’t look fake.”

Host: The camera would pull back, showing the vast, empty soundstage — littered with snow, props, and echoes of laughter — a cathedral of human invention and impermanence.

And perhaps, that was what Tom Sturridge meant all along:
That the truest moments in art — and in life — are the ones that make you stop, blink, and ask, “Where am I?”

Because in that single breath of disbelief lies the purest proof that you’re finally present.