Sometimes You Just Have to Ask, "Why?"

Today is a sad day. Today the world has lost one of its finest young actors, Philip Seymour Hoffman. I say young because to me, he was. Only 46, 4 years younger than I, but really young in the fact that he had so much more to share with the world. An amazing talent, he began his career in 1991 at the age of 24. I first heard of his death when my daughter called me from college because she was hoping it was a hoax, and asked me if it was true. At this point, the wire services had already picked up the story, and his death had been confirmed. Being a budding actor herself, he was one of her favorites. He was also one of mine. He was definitely one of the most versatile actors of our time. Proof of this came to me when I went to IMDB to search for a film I had seen him in years ago, and as I looked at his body of work, I found myself thinking, "Oh, yeah, I forgot he was in that." Not to say that he was forgettable at all, but that he was so different in each role he brought to life that I certainly remembered the role, but had forgotten that he was the actor. I guess the first time I ever saw him was in Boogie Nights, a very interesting role in a very interesting movie. I've seen him in a myriad of roles since then running the gamut from the priest in Doubt to Ben Stiller's crazy friend in Along Came Polly, but one of my favorite roles of his was that of Rusty in a 1999 movie with Robert De Niro called Flawless. You may have never heard of it, but do yourself a favor and rent it. Hoffman plays a drag queen who is giving De Niro, a wounded cop, singing lessons as a form of physical therapy. The premise sounds humorous to say the least, but it has some extremely touching moments, and Hoffman's performance is nothing short of brilliant! I don't even know how I happened on it to begin with, but I am so glad I did. When I think of Philip Seymour Hoffman, I think of the words fearless, risk taker, bold, passionate and definitely talented, but he was obviously very private as well. You didn't hear a lot about his personal life. No one knows what drives us to do the things we do. He was definitely struggling, and it makes me so sad that yet another giant in the acting world has fallen prey to the monster of drug addiction. I am not passing judgement. I am simply asking, "Why?" I will never understand, and my heart is heavy at the loss of such a bright light who had the world in front of him. What wonderful performances could we have seen if we had not been deprived of another 30 years of his career?