 Hoffman received his only Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his supporting role in the HBO miniseries Empire Falls ( 2005 ) , about life in a New England town , but lost to castmate Paul Newman . In 2006 , he appeared in the summer blockbuster Mission : Impossible III , playing the villainous arms dealer Owen <unk> opposite Tom Cruise . A journalist for Vanity Fair stated that Hoffman 's " black @-@ hat performance was one of the most delicious in a Hollywood film since Alan Rickman 's in Die Hard " , and he was generally approved of for bringing gravitas to the action film . With a gross of nearly US $ 400 million , it exposed Hoffman to a mainstream audience . 
