It was her work in 1992's "This is My Life", directed by Nora Ephron, and the resulting praise that encouraged Hoffmann to fully pursue acting as a career. As Opal, the daughter of a stand-up comedienne (Julie Kavner), the youngster showed a sweeter, more vulnerable side, proving her capacity to handle major roles. Ephron again tapped her for a pivotal part in "Sleepless in Seattle", where she sparked up the film as the crafty pal of Ross Malinger (who played Tom Hanks' son). While her sitcom (about a precocious pre-teen) only aired five episodes, Hoffmann proved enough of a small screen presence to land the parts of the daughter of Shelley Long in the switching places comedy "Freaky Friday" (ABC, 1995) and the object of a custody battle in the 1995 CBS TV movie drama "Whose Daughter Is She?". That same year, she was featured in the coming of age drama "Now and Then", playing the character Samantha as a child, while Demi Moore played Samantha's adult incarnation. 1996 saw Hoffmann featured in Woody Allen's musical "Everyone Says I Love You" before she undertook the role of Tommy Lee Jones' daughter in the disaster flick "Volcano" (1997).
Since then, the busy actress has preferred to concentrate on feature roles, In 60s-era comedy "Strike!/The Hairy Bird" (1998), Hoffmann played an outsider sent to an all-girls school who joins with her fellow students in protesting the proposed admittance of boys. She had similar roles in "Snapped" (1998), an indie comedy about unmotivated kids in New York's East Hampton, and "Coming Soon" (1999), another coming-of-age comedy set in an Upper East Side Manhattan prep school. Hoffmann also appeared in the ensembles of "200 Cigarettes", an 80s-era comedy/drama co-starring such young luminaries as Christina Ricci and Casey Affleck and "Black and White" (both also 1999), James Toback's film about race relations reportedly shot without a traditional script.