by Patrick Doyle

On Sunday, February 2nd, actor and director Philip Seymour Hoffman was discovered in his

office in Greenwich Village dead of an apparent heroin overdose. He was 46. Among friends and

admirers, Hoffman also leaves behind a son and two daughters.

When I heard this news, I became shocked and upset. Hoffman was Truman Capote in

Capote, Lester Bangs in Almost Famous, Scotty in Boogie Nights and his performance in

Magnolia solified his place as a talented voice of his generation. As an fairly untraditional actor,

he was as true to the form as anyone else, exuding a passion for acting and the arts that was

genuine.

In recent time, I became aware of Hoffman’s involvement in theater, on and off

Broadway. When I read Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train by Stephen Adly Guirgis, I learned that

Hoffman had directed a rendition of it and had been nominated for Drama Desk Awards. Always

approaching him as an actor, I was surprised to see he had done directing. Hoffman and Guirgis

would team up two other times with Our Lady of 121st Street and In Arabia We’d All Be Kings.

To my delight, Hoffman, alongside John C. Reilly, both acted in a 2000 revival of Sam

Shepard’s hilarious and surreal True West. Amongst his theater work, his Broadway revival of

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, in which he played as Willy Loman in 2012, was heralded

as a tremendous success, with the NYTimes even saying Hoffman was “one of the finest actors

of his generation.”

With his passing, Hoffman will likely be remembered most for his portrayal of Truman

Capote, which landed him an Academy Award. For anyone familiar with Capote’s eccentricities

and high-pitched voice, Hoffman absolutely nailed the part, connecting himself to the role

flawlessly, producing the first “real” film regarding Capote and his life. Without the release of

that film, and being lured in by Hoffman’s characterization, I may have never come to appreciate

the work of Capote. That’s a damn good job if you can do that.

Given the tragedy, it’s caustic and feels desolate to imagine his work will now reach a

standstill. It’s unfortunate. Bravely Hoffman once opened up on 60 Minutes, discussing his past

issues with drugs and alcohol, which he said had stopped when he was age 22. Last year, he

checked into a program for a pharmaceutical problem which had led him back to heroin. Among

the heroin, which was in large quantities in the office, there were numerous pharmaceuticals,

along with a needle which was found still in his arm.

Some of us who admired Hoffman will naturally be overcome with grief where

frustration arises with the person who was lost. The key here is that this was not Hoffman’s fault,

nor were his issues selfish. We are human beings and our lives are an attempt to clarify and

understand the world around us; this is not something that is easy on us. In Civilization and its

Discontents by Freud, he proposes the idea that because of the state of our lives, we seek alternative mind states: drugs, alcohol, television, a drastic lifestyle change, religion, self-help

programs, meetings. In these alternative mind states, a ritual can develop, which in certain cases

can be potentially fatal or very detrimental to the person in question and those around them.

Do not judge Hoffman for how he left, but recognize what this man did for both film and

theater alike in his lifetime, and the legacy of work he has left for us.