Dear Philip Seymour Hoffman (#1)

LIKE ONE OF US

THE ACTOR PHILIP Seymour Hoffman was a cultural touchstone, embodying character roles that captured our weaknesses, fears, and pretentions—as well as the best impulses of mankind—and reflected them back to us. In his captivating performances he was like an oracle of truth. But like all of us, he was flawed. When he overdosed and died on February 2, 2014, I felt it as a crack in the consciousness, like some essential balance had been lost in the world. I resolved to try to counter that by writing about a world in distress and keeping him in the loop. I bought the domain name “dearphilipseymourhoffman.com” and began mapping out a plan to produce a series of letters to him about the state of the world and the culture he’d left behind.

I did that because, since his death, we seemed to have devolved into the land of George Orwell’s dystopian Newspeak. Where do we go for trusted sources? Whose point of view do we want to read or see? Half a century ago, Janet Flanner’s long-running “Letter From Paris” informed New Yorker readers about cultural events in the French capital; what I envisioned was a series of letters not from a city but to a lost and lamented cultural icon.

I wrote these letters privately, for my own sanity. And when Trump lost in 2020, I thought the worst days were over. Silly me. Now, a week and a half into Trump’s horrific second term, I feel like it’s time to go public with Dear Philip Seymour Hoffman. Why? To explore who we are now. To explain the divisions in our country as well as the fractured media landscape, the Christian nationalism that’s being legislated, and the authoritarianism that’s being normalized. How the dumbing down of America is being institutionalized, as well as who this dumbing down empowers and who monetizes it. To examine the role of corporate greed in our de-evolution, and to show how feeding the success of the ultra-rich to erect an ultra-poor has embedded a class war into our consciousness. To examine what happened to shame and how simple manners have disappeared. To review how we went from putting people into prison for marijuana to making psychedelics the new designer drugs and the hope for expanding mental health. How the “Sharing Economy” was never about sharing at all. And much more. What I’m getting at is news and culture but at a deeper level.

This weekend marks the 11^th anniversary of Hoffman’s death, and I miss his humanity more than ever. To give you some grounding, I’ll take you back to the beginning—to my first letter to him, with a bit of added updating. Let me know what you think.

Dear Philip Seymour Hoffman,

I’LL NEVER FORGET the day the world was told you were dead. The news traveled in the crackle of speed through the Internet, in newspapers of note, on television. It wasn’t merely an entertainment bulletin about some so-so celebrity. It was a solemn announcement reporting that a remarkable artist had overdosed. It was a tragic accident that startled and disconcerted us.

Your physical life was done, but you had changed the world. And you’d left us a record of your consciousness.

When your spirit left your body, did you see yourself lying on the bathroom floor with a syringe dangling from your vein? That was the description that was reported about how you were found—and by a friend, who must have been dreading the worst when he came looking for you. Unlike us, he probably knew what he might discover. I can only imagine how panicked he was—and how painful it was to make the obligatory calls to the police and your beloved family. The devastation he must have felt.

Were you still floating in space when he arrived? Hovering over the flesh and bones that were left of you, watching and waiting for your uncovering? Were you wondering who it might be?

I have read that you were open about your addictions, but I don’t remember that part of your life. Admittedly, memory is personal and tricky at best. But I’m sure you knew in your heart of hearts that you had to stay away from heroin. That it was a given for your survival. Yet, the addiction took hold again. The illness took over.

Could you feel how the world was shaken by your loss? You were 46 years old—too young, too talented, too authentic and searing in the portrayal of the characters you inhabited. “Phil Hoffman, this kind, decent, magnificent, thunderous actor, who was never outwardly ‘right’ for any role but who completely dominated the real estate upon which every one of his characters walked...,” said Aaron Sorkin, who is another supremely talented addict, but one who lived. What a testament to who you were in the holiest part of yourself.

Your death was also the talk of the AA world. “’There hasn’t been one meeting where I haven’t heard about it,” said AA member Rita in a New York Times article. “People in the public eye see it as, ‘We lost a great talent.’ People in recovery see it as, ‘We lost a brother in arms.’”

Even if many of us weren’t in AA, we all felt like you were our brother-in-arms. In these days when many celebrities are famous for, well, being celebrities, you didn’t constantly preen for the spotlight. You weren’t a feckless star who posed arrogantly as above reach, living an “aspirational” lifestyle of the rich and famous. Nor were you a wealthy, privileged big name whining about his life—the me, me, me that is pushed as standard now. You seemed grounded with truth in your values. You seemed like one of us.

We imagined we knew a tiny bit of you through your fine performances. You drew us in and expanded our ability to see into ourselves as well as the slices of the lives of the others you portrayed—the realities as well as dreams and delusions—not to mention the characters, both real and fictional. Part of you inhabited the genuine liminal space in which we unconsciously drift. How did you detect and breathe that energy?

I’m not going to chastise you for the grim reality of what ended your life and painfully took you away from friends and family and those of us who appreciated you and were grateful for what you publicly gave us. Honestly, I’m part of the generation that took advantage of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, when they were expanding the alternative culture. I’ve done a lot of drugs myself but never heroin. It was too dangerous, and I was afraid. On top of that, I might like it too much. So I’m glad I never stuck a needle in my arm. I have to admit that when I saw the movie Blow, I thought, I had some of that cocaine. But it was infrequent and never much.

Have you missed the gravity of Earth? We miss the intangible weight you gave to our awareness.

You forced your children to grow up before their time, and they will never get over losing you in this defining moment of their lives. I know this because my father tragically died when I was 15 years old. Oh, yes, life goes on, and, over time, grief gradually abates—but it never goes away. Although we learn to live without our beloved parent, the agony clings to the corners of our deepest, darkest pain.

So here we are. You are gone but our impressions of your life reverberate in us. For some time, I’ve felt the need to catch you up on what’s been happening around here since you left us. The world has been crazier than you can possibly imagine. A global virus killed millions of people and left us all feeling isolated, desperate, and lonely. Gay marriage was legalized, and Roe v Wade was overturned. Harvey Weinstein and a mass of other powerful, arrogant sexual harassers finally paid for their predatory and abusive behavior.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and I really hate to disturb your eternal peace, but I have to tell you that in 2016, we elected Donald Trump President of the United States. Donald Trump, shyster real estate baron and narcissistic TV personality. It was a hard correction for the Democrats and a tacky and grueling four years of ineptitude and corruption for We The People. What a global embarrassment. Trump ran again in 2020 and lost, but he led a violent insurrection with white nationalist thugs to try to overturn the people’s vote. His people broke in and ransacked the United States Capitol, and we all saw it play out on national television.

Trump’s corruption was no secret—and there’s too much to go into in this letter—but he’s now a convicted felon…and unbelievably he’s president again. While he was fighting lawsuits that were attempting to hold him accountable and costing him upwards of $1 billion, he campaigned with Orwellian disinformation and hoodwinked a slight majority of the people who re-elected him. For God’s sake. So, once again, here we are.

It's a lot to process. But leave it to me—I’ll keep you in the loop.

Peace, brother,

Beth