Some very sad news this morning brings word Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead of an apparent drug overdose in the bathroom of his Manhattan apartment. An autopsy will be performed to confirm the cause of death. It should be noted, Hoffman struggled with substance abuse in the past, which “started slowly with prescription pills, and recently escalated to snorting heroin” and as recently as May 2013 checked out of detox following a relapse after being clean for 23 years.
An official told the New York Times investigators found a syringe in his arm and an envelope containing what is believed to be heroin. The official added, “It’s pretty apparent that it was an overdose… The syringe was in his arm.”
It gets even sadder with this quote from one of Hoffman’s neighbors:
“He’s a local. He’s a fixture in this neighborhood,” said Christian McCulloch, 39, who said that he lives nearby. “You see him with his kids in the coffee shops, he is so sweet. It’s desperately sad.”
Nominated for the Oscar four times and winning for his work in Bennett Miller‘s Capote, it’s not as if Hoffman was a man whose career had reached its peak.
As an actor he’d certainly given us great performances including Scotty J. in Boogie Nights, Freddie Miles in The Talented Mr. Ripley, Father Flynn in Doubt and Lancaster Dodd in The Master to name a few, but just recently he directed his first feature in Jack Goes Boating and there’s no telling how high his career could have soared as he had already lined up Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams for his sophomore effort Ezekiel Moss. Certainly passing at the age of 46 is too young.
Most recently he was seen as Plutarch Heavensbee in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, a role he reprised in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and I’m unsure if he’d completed all his scenes in Part 2, which isn’t yet completed. He’ll also be seen in Anton Corbijn‘s A Most Wanted Man, which just recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Philip Seymour Hoffman's house is a circus pic.twitter.com/VpS52PvGxa
— Alison Fox (@AlisonFox) February 2, 2014
