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I was shocked by the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman reported earlier today. Considered one of the best actors of his generation, Hoffman was a force on screen. He was a masterful actor, an actor that I uncovered, largely, through the filmography of my favorite director, Paul Thomas Anderson. In fact, Hoffman had acted in all of PTA’s films but There Will Be Blood (excluding the upcoming Inherent Vice).

Today the world lost an incredibly talented man, a man who had total authenticity on screen, a man with the powerful ability to remind us what it means to be a human being. He could do it all. He made us cry, he made us laugh, he made us cringe, he made us fear.

It still hasn’t quite sunk in that I’ll never again see Hoffman on screen in a new role. Never again see him breathe life into a new being. Never again get to immerse myself in his performances. Never again have the pleasure of deriving meaning from his work. It strikes me that this is what it must have felt like when JFK was assassinated or when news spread of James Dean’s motorcycle accident or when Buddy Holly’s plane plummeted from the sky. Some may think that’s silly, but it doesn’t change that it felt like I was punched in the gut when I first read today’s Wall Street Journal article about Hoffman’s death.

Unfortunately, more often than not, we see this dark underbelly that comes with supreme talent. For example, David Foster Wallace had unmatched talent, a talent for which he paid the most serious of prices. In 2008, no longer able to best the crippling, genetically disposed depression that had plagued him since his youth, Wallace hung himself in his California home. Some speculate that he couldn’t cope with the idea that his creative powers had peaked, that he would never write another book that could rival his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.

Wallace’s story serves as a microcosm for the nature of supreme talent and its dark side, a way to contextualize the unnamable force that drove Hoffman’s work and his overdose. This seems to be the way things sometimes go with extremely talented people—their life, while undoubtedly blessed, seems to be an existence defined by danger. Athletes fear injury, musicians and actors fear addiction and drug overdoses, writers fear depression, and politicians fear assassination, rebellion, or defeat. Even Prometheus—the Greek figure who stole fire from the Gods, the first champion of mankind and its talents—found himself chained to a rock as a great eagle ate his liver for the rest of eternity.

But, does this metanarrative soften the blow? Does it help to know that Hoffman’s talent, this Godlike skill that allowed him to tap into the deepest and truest parts of humanity, naturally comes with such darkness? I wish I could say yes, but instead I just sit here, still refusing to believe that he’s no longer with us.

I’ve compiled my favorite Hoffman clips below. Please watch them. Please enjoy them for what he was, for what he did, for how he made us all feel.

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