Philip Seymour Hoffman's sudden death at 46 is tragic and shocking. I didn't think of him as a celebrity. I thought of him as a working actor. An extraordinarily compelling working actor. One of the best. Ever. And you think that the work, being able to do the work, and at such a high level would be everything.
Of course, it isn't, there's all that other messy stuff that makes up a life. And maybe some of that messy stuff was actually beneficial to him when he worked. He had a vast well of emotion to draw upon. Made for amazing work, and maybe sometimes a difficult life.
Seems it was an overdose of heroin. Shooting heroin, one of the riskiest of high risk habits. Unfathomable. You think the work, doing the work, would have been enough. But it's more complicated than that, unfortunately, and addiction is a killer.
I will not forget his amazing, extraordinary, moving work in True West, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Master, Doubt, etc.