Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014)

In many of his performances, Hoffman's characters bordered on either the manic or depressive, but he brought a depth and intellectual honesty to each of them beyond the lines of the script.

In his starring roles, his characters often took a darker course, in many cases being the antihero.

"Hoffman isn't someone we want to be," Claire Dederer wrote of Mr. Hoffman’s roles in Salon. "He's someone we want to be better than. Here is an actor whose entire oeuvre can be described in one sentence: 'At least I’m not that guy.' "

-- from "Philip Seymour Hoffman, Oscar-winning actor, found dead in NY apartment" by the Washington Post's Terence McArdle and DeNeen L. Brown

by Ken

This is awful, and shocking, in a way that isn't easy to explain but is perhaps not so hard to understand.

It's not "shocking" in the sense of "gosh, I can't believe it," because Philip Seymour Hoffman had been pretty open about his long-time early substance abuse ("anything I could get my hands on," he told 60 Minutes in 2006; "yeah, I liked it all"), and about the drug relapse that sent him back into rehab in 2012. As I write this morning, police suspicion is focused on the possibility of a drug overdose, perhaps because --

they found Mr. Hoffman unconscious and unresponsive on the floor of a bathroom. According to an unnamed police official who was not authorized to comment publicly, Mr. Hoffman was found with a needle in his arm and several bags of what appeared to be heroin.

Possible drug overdose, eh? Man, you can't slip anything past those cops.

What's shocking is that here is a man as good at his craft as you can be, and at the ripe old age of 46 he's gone, for no good reason -- at least no good reason to those of us who aren't, or rather weren't, him.

I'm not proud to admit it, but I do admit that I have terrible envy of people who really accomplish stuff. It's not the fame or fortune, such as it is, that I envy, but the accomplishment. And Philip Seymour Hoffman was really good, and should have had another 30 or more years to give us who-knows-how-many more indelible performances.

From the Washington Post piece:

Mr. Hoffman, who specialized in off-kilter roles, won the best-actor Oscar for his 2005 portrayal of Capote in the biographical film that chronicled the writer's research -- and ethical transgressions -- for the nonfiction crime novel "In Cold Blood."

It was one of four performances that earned Mr. Hoffman an Oscar nomination. He was nominated for best supporting actor three times: for playing a CIA agent in "Charlie Wilson's War," an abusive priest in "Doubt" and Lancaster Dodd, a character loosely based on Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, in "The Master."

His work in "The Master," released in 2012, was for director Paul Thomas Anderson. In total, the actor appeared in five Anderson films -- all but one of the director's six feature-length films. . . .

On Broadway, Mr. Hoffman was nominated three times for a Tony award, including for his portrayal of the worn traveling salesman Willy Loman in an acclaimed 2012 revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." His other Broadway roles included the oldest son of the Tyrone family in a 2003 production of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night." . . .

"He was an extraordinary actor with tremendous range and the gift of fully and deeply realizing his amazing characters in films from 'Magnolia' and 'Capote' to 'Charlie Wilson's War' and 'Doubt,' " said Ken Howard, president of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. "He was such a great talent and his loss is just deeply sad. On behalf of his fellow actors and all members of SAG-AFTRA, our condolences go out to his family and friends." . . .

In case anyone thinks what an actor like Philip Seymour Hoffman did comes easily, think again.

Mr. Hoffman, who frequently dyed his hair and lost or gained weight for parts, was known for a sometimes painful dedication to his craft.

"With Capote, the part required me to be a little unbalanced, and that wasn't really good for my mental health," he told the New York Times in 2008. "It was also a technically difficult part. Because I was holding my body in a way it doesn't want to be held and because I was speaking in a voice that my vocal cords did not want to do, I had to stay in character all day.

"Otherwise, I would give my body the chance to bail on me." . . .

Mr. Hoffman fully immersed himself in his craft and took pride in its creative challenge. "In my mid-20s, an actor told me, 'Acting ain't no puzzle,' Mr. Hoffman once said. "I thought: 'Ain't no puzzle?' You must be bad! You must be really bad, because it is a puzzle. . . . You start stabbing out, and you make a mistake, and it's not right, and then you try again and again.

"The key is you have to commit. And that's hard because you have to find what it is you are committing to."

Then of course there's the personal loss.

Survivors include his partner of 15 years, Mimi O'Donnell; three children; two sisters; and his older brother, screenwriter and director Gordy Hoffman.

"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone," Mr. Hoffman's family said in a statement. They asked that the public keep Mr. Hoffman "in your thoughts and prayers."

REMEMBERING "A NEIGHBORHOOD GUY"

DNAinf.com's Danielle Tcholakian offers this remembrance from neighbors in the West Village, where "passersby and camera crews huddled together outside the Bethune Street apartment building [Hoffman] had moved into just a few months prior."

For many Village residents, the actor's death meant the loss of someone they regularly saw up close, spoke with and worked alongside.

The West Village theater community rallied together at the LAByrinth Theater on Bank Street, which Hoffman helped establish. A steady stream of people poured into the space, congregating inside to hug and comfort one another.

Many members declined to speak with a reporter. Those who did stressed what a deeply personal loss they were grappling with.

"He was family," one theater company member said.

Hoffman was a regular sight on the streets of the Village, which was always a surprise to some residents.

"He was just a neighborhood guy," said Amy Gruenhut, 33.

Gruenhut, who has lived on Jane Street for 10 years, said she often saw Hoffman "strolling by himself," or sitting on a step smoking a cigarette in front of the Jane Street home he used to share with his girlfriend, Mimi O'Donnell, and their three children, Cooper Alexander, Tallulah and Willa.

Gruenhut said she felt particularly upset by the news that Hoffman may have died of a drug overdose, because she often thought he "looked sad."

"I kind of thought maybe I should have said something to him," she said, noting he was a regular at the same coffee shop she went to, Chocolate Bar. "He just looked really sad and lonely."

But other neighbors, like 22-year-old Malik Sow, saw a different Hoffman.

"I had heard about his [drug] issues last year when he relapsed, which was surprising to me just 'cause he was so normal," said Sow, a filmmaking student at the School of Visual Arts who grew up in the Village.

Lighting a candle and a stick of incense to set on the doorstep of 35 Bethune St., where Hoffman was found dead hours earlier, he recalled Hoffman bringing his kids into the neighborhood bookstore where Sow used to work.

"He was just very cool," Sow said. "You don't find a lot of really down-to-earth people in the [film] industry."

And employees at Chocolate Bar on Eighth Avenue said heartbroken regulars had been coming in all day asking if they had heard the news of Hoffman's death.

"Everyone seems pretty shaken up," said Kate St. Cyr, 24, the assistant manager. She said it was especially shocking to hear that he may have died of an overdose.

"We just saw him yesterday, he was fine," she said. "He's been in a great mood, really happy."

To St. Cyr and her coworkers, Hoffman was more than an award-winning actor: he was a friendly neighbor, "a really sweet man" and most of all, a "really sweet dad."

St. Cyr said Hoffman would bring all three of his kids to Chocolate Bar on summer nights for their favorite ice cream: peanut butter swirl. Some afternoons, he would come in just with his son, Cooper Alexander, after the two had played basketball together. They ate ice cream together on the bench in front of the little cafe.

"He seemed to have a really great relationship with his kids," St. Cyr said. "That's, I think, what's upsetting most of us. We feel really sad for his kids."

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