Famed director and creator of the shows including The West Wing and The Newsroom, has written a gripping tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Time. The two had worked together on the film Charlie Wilson’s War and during breaks would talk about their struggles with substance abuse issues. He writes that during these “mini-AA meetings”, Hoffman told him, “If one of us dies of an overdose, probably 10 people who were about to won’t.” Sorkin explained,
He meant that our deaths would make news and maybe scare someone clean. So it’s in that spirit that I’d like to say this: 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, did not die from an overdose of heroin—he died from heroin. We should stop implying that if he’d just taken the proper amount then everything would have been fine.
The whole piece is definitely worth a read, and serves not only as a tribute to the work of the actor, but also a examination of the nature of addiction …
