The dune The star recognized the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as one of the greats. “He was at the helm, man,” he wrote (via diversity). “That was him It. He was the most talented of all of us and lived his sobriety as a badge of honor. “It meant a lot to him.” He was referring to the troubled actor’s struggle with substances, which he managed until a relapse in 2012. Ultimately, Hoffman died of an overdose in 2014.

“I said, ‘If you ever want to talk about this crap, let me know,'” Brolin said of an encounter with Hoffman after his relapse. “And he was dead a month and a half or two months later. It was terrible. “This was a guy who became our favorite actor.” This was in stark contrast to another incident Brolin wrote about that occurred during Hoffman’s sober period. “My bare chest is covered in sweat,” Brolin remembers. “I look back at the subway stairwell, but he (Hoffman) is already gone. I know he’s sober. I am no more. He knows that too. I could tell by the way he looked at me as someone who just didn’t get it.”

Brolin and Hoffman never worked on a project together, but the former had met the latter’s mother when they were both doing plays together. They had talked about directing a version of Kenneth Lonergans Hold me tight, darling with Brolin in the lead role and Hoffman as director, but that Capote The actor died before they could put this plan into action.

Like Hoffman, Brolin had his own struggles with alcohol and drugs. In the book he recalled the turning point in his life; When he showed up to visit his dying grandmother, he had drunk heavily the night before. “I had a moment where she smiled at me and I thought, ‘How dare I?'” he recalled. “I realized that I had everything at my fingertips and yet I was destroying it. And that was it. I like the clarity that comes with sobriety. Maybe it’s an affectation, but I like the rebelliousness of saying, ‘Okay, I’ve lived 45 years of this life.’ Now I’m going to live another 45 years without alcohol.'”

“I don’t have survivor’s guilt,” the actor said of his many friends who have lost their lives to drug abuse. “But I feel a responsibility to live my life to the fullest…I chose to drink and have done some terrible things after making that decision. I was willing to endure these terrible things in order to have an identity. Because without alcohol I didn’t feel like I was a full human being.”

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