Why Seymour Hoffman dreads Oscar win

Philip Seymour Hoffman is dreading winning the best actor Oscar – because of a drunken college bet.

The actor, who is favourite to take the award, and his pals agreed years ago that, if any of them won an Oscar, they would bark their acceptance speech.

He explained the problem to US chat show host David Letterman. "The director of the film (Bennett Miller) and I went to college together and the writer (Dan Futterman) of the film, we all met when we were 16.

"We had this friend at the time, Steven, and we all made this drunken pact that if one of us ever won the Academy Award, that we would bark the whole acceptance speech."

"We were very serious," he continued. "Literally, we were like: 'I'll do that. I will definitely commit to that.' Bennett and I met with Steven recently in Los Angeles and he said: 'So remember we made this pact that you have to bark?'

"The thing is you can't just bark, you have to bark until they pull you off (the stage). Let's hope I don't have to get up there."