Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his West Village apartment Sunday morning. At 46 -years-old, Hoffman overdosed — leaving behind a wife, three children,and scores of fans that were touched by his acting.
Officers found bags of what appears to be heroin along with muscle relaxers and synthetic opioids in Hoffman’s residence. Hoffman’s playwright friend David Bar Katz made the discovery and alerted the authorities. Emergency responders declared Hoffman dead on the scene.
It’s difficult to say precisely what we lost with Hoffman’s death, not because the actor had little impact but rather because he had so much. In these weird little inventories we make after people die, we feel better having monumental achievements to tick off a list in remembrance. Actors complicate this process.
I could list off Hoffman’s movies and well-known roles in an attempt to jog your memory of a favorite scene. You have Wikipedia for that. More important than the individual characters is the tone of Hoffman’s acting. Hoffman approached movies with a somber, quiet talent and a painful dedication to the craft.
His characters spanned the spectrum from ridiculous to haunting, but in each role Hoffman emanated a pained energy. You could see in his eyes that skeletons were wrestling in Hoffman’s closet.
Beyond our affection for his movies, we’re touched by Hoffman’s death because drug addiction has affected us all in some way. We might have a parent or close friend with an addiction. We might know a famous celebrity who’s died from drug abuse. We might be addicts ourselves.
Talent and skill are great at hiding hurt and depression. We don’t want to believe that experts have deep inner pain because we see them as greater than ourselves — representatives of our best qualities at large.
But everybody has an issue. Some of us ruin relationships with our issues and some of us ruin lives with our issues. No matter how much damage we’ve caused, however, it’s important to know we can share our pain and bring it to light rather than hiding it in the dark, in an empty apartment, in a needle.
Haidar is a junior majoring in journalism.
