People We Know
A Few Thoughts on Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Phillip Seymour Hoffman was found dead on Sunday morning, February 2nd, by all appearances of a heroin overdose. The whole country seems pretty shaken up about it, my friends especially – I’m seeing lots of posts and lots of articles and lots of thoughts on how incredibly much he meant to people, meant to the whole world. Even I’m finding myself thinking about it a lot more than I’d expect, given how little attention I usually pay these kinds of things.
What is it about celebrity deaths that can shake people so much? How is it that I can feel sad – genuinely sad, in a way that makes me think about and reflect on this man’s life – upon hearing a person has died whom I’ve never even met, who didn’t even know I exist? I feel like it’s especially true with actors, and maybe musicians too; is it because of the emotions they bring out in us? We feel as though we know these people - I’ve “seen” Phillip Seymour Hoffman in dozens of places, many times over. I’ve “known” him for years, known his voice, known some of his mannerisms, known at least a little bit about his life. He’s made me feel happy and sad; he’s probably made me laugh.
Is this it? I suppose it’s not surprising that we would find ourselves emotionally attached to someone like this – someone who we know a bit about, who’s made us feel, whose face and voice we know all too well, have known for years. With Hoffman too, people have known about his pain, known about his struggle with addiction, his recovery, his relapses. How much better can you “know” a person than this, on the surface anyway?
It’s not just that he’s likeable, or a good actor – I think it’s something more than that. I have a lot of intelligent friends who say they usually don’t pay attention to or fetishize or obsess over celebrity deaths, but this one seems different, this one is big. (Think of David Foster Wallace too – people still – I still – write that they “miss him”, that they “wish he were still around”, to write, to lecture, to be a presence in our minds and lives. I would follow DFW on Twitter if we were still here. I would message DFW on Twitter if he were still here. I would travel somewhere to see him talk.)
People have said it before, but it makes you wish, after the fact, that someone had been able to tell a guy like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, or especially DFW (Hoffman, at least, was seemingly an accident and not a suicide), how incredibly much they mean to such a great many people. You think to yourself, if only I’d been able to meet him on the street, to shake his hand, to say “Thank you for all you’ve done, you really have to know how much you mean to people, how much you make them feel and believe in life and humanity and the power of acting to make us feel and find joy in life. You give people’s lives joy, and I want you to know this. Be careful with yourself, because you’ll make a lot of people sad if you mess it up, if you go away.”
You imagine you could say this to the person and that it would’ve saved the day, but of course it wouldn’t have. Addiction’s addiction, and depression’s depression, which is to say they’re not things you can logically fight your way out of. It’s not as though these thoughts probably never occurred to DFW, that Hoffman wasn’t able to glean some sense of this love and adoration from the droves of fans and critics when he showed up (and won) at the Oscars and read reviews. And it’s not like he didn’t have friends or family who couldn’t tell him these things on a semi-regular basis either. DFW, as far as I can tell, had friends and supporters and meaningful work, and so did Hoffman. I suppose that’s a lot of what makes this all the more tragic and sad – if everything these guys had going on for them didn’t do the trick, what would have – what could have? And what about the rest of us? And how terrifying is the grip of addiction, the bleakness of depression, that everything these people have going for them isn’t enough to pull them back from that darkened alley, from the darkest abyss?
You’ll be missed, Mr. Hoffman. Likely by many more than you possibly knew.
