I saw him in Central Park. It was the summer of 2001, and I'd heard that Kevin Kline was going to be in a Shakespeare in Central Park production of Chekhov's Seagull. I'd long wanted to see him on stage, so I made plans for a few days in New York, centered around the play.
It turned out to be a beautiful balmy July evening, with a big moon rising over the Park. Kline was really good. So were Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken and John Goodman and Marcia Gay Harden, and Natalie Portman as the titular bird. But Philip Seymour Hoffman as Konstantin, who is in love with her, ach! He slayed me. He was so raw and sad and heart-breaking that I cried throughout the entire last act of the play. Sat on the bleachers with my hands clamped over my mouth and tried not to sob out loud.
And since then, whenever I've talked about it, I've told people that if I ever bumped into him, I would thank him for making me cry like that. There is no more chance of that now. So sad.