By Yesterday, Phillip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City. You’ve probably read all of the unpleasant details elsewhere on the internet a dozen times, and we’ll spare you them here.
We’re late on this one (the initial report was filed something like 20 hours ago and the internet exploded not long after), but to be perfectly honest, all of us on the Flixist staff were just too sad to add to the commotion yesterday. I got the email linking to the Wall Street Journal article right around the time it went up, and we could have posted it then. I got an alert from the New York Times app on my phone, and it could have been then. Then it came up in conversation with people who don’t know the first thing about the film industry, and then again. It could have been any of these times…
But the act of creating the post, everything that goes around the text you’re reading now, felt wrong somehow. Finding an appropriate header image and then photo-shopping it to fit our CMS’s restrictions, checking our database for appropriate tags and considering whether or not this should be attached to some product: all of these things seem cold and uncaring. But it would have seemed just as bad to have said nothing at all, especially about somebody so beloved (and, of course, talented).
Phillip Seymour Hoffman was a truly amazing actor, certainly one of the best in the industry, and his absence will undoubtedly be felt for years to come. Although he had not finished his work for Mockingjay Part 2, the film is still on track to be released in 2015. The fates of some of his other projects, however, are less clear. At only 46 years old, there is undoubtedly much, much more he could have done, and this is a terrible loss.
Our condolences go out to his family, friends, and everyone he worked with.