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Outgoing Cannes Film Festival president Gilles Jacob and big Bollywood names have joined Hollywood and U.K. stars in paying homage to Philip Seymour Hoffman.
The star was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on Sunday from an apparent drug overdose.
After Hollywood reactions and tributes from such U.K. film industry representatives as Steve Coogan on Sunday, industry figures in other parts of the world on Monday joined the chorus of people expressing their sadness and lauding Hoffman’s work.
VIDEO: Philip Seymour Hoffman Talks to THR, Jokes Around in One of His Final Interviews (Video)
“A great actor has left us,” Jacob tweeted. “So many beautiful roles were created by a captivating and focused artist.” He added: “He could be hard, he could be loose, soft, ambiguous, intriguing, he could be low, but never lost his consistency.”
Jacob also lauded Hoffman’s “extraordinary finesse” and cited his scene with Ryan Gosling at the end of The Ides of March as particularly “gut-wrenching” and a work of “great art.”
Among other French reactions, Blue Is the Warmest Color actress Adele Exarchopoulos simply posted a photo of Hoffman on her official Twitter feed to pay homage to the actor.
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Leading Indian film figures on Monday also commented on Hoffman’s death at age 46.
Tweeted Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan: “WHAT! Philip Seymour Hoffman Found Dead. In 2005, Hoffman won the Oscar and the Golden Globe Award for Capote…exceptional artist.”
Actor Anupam Kher (Silver Linings Playbook) said: “Unbelievably sad. Such a brilliant actor. Rest In Peace Philip Seymour Hoffman.”
And Irrfan Khan (Life of Pi, Slumdog Millionaire) said: “He left the song incomplete or there wasn’t any more to sing?… Philip’s exit will take a long, long time to settle in…. Philip left the show in the middle…”
Director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Reluctant Fundamentalist) said she was “shocked” to hear about Hoffman’s death, adding: “He lived to make art and died for it. terrible when the great ones leave us.”
Tweeted director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth): “Remember long wonderful meeting with him in NYC. A man so incredibly humble about his genius. He was only 46. What a loss.”
Meanwhile, Andrew Upton, artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company, told THR: “My thoughts are with Philip’s family at this terrible time. He was an incredible man. A generous and true spirit. The loss is extraordinary.”
Upton and his wife, actress Cate Blanchett, brought Hoffman to Australia to direct True West for the company in 2010 when Blanchett was co-artistic director with her husband. They had a long friendship dating back to 1999, when Hoffman and Blanchett starred in The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Australian Oscar winner Adam Elliot, director of claymation feature Mary & Max, in which Hoffman voiced the lead role of Max, told Fairfax Media: “He was very serious right from day one but there was no ego. It was all about ‘How do we get the best performance?’ He was a genius – Meryl Streep with a beard, I suppose.”
Back in the U.K., Gail Egan, who produced spy thriller A Most Wanted Man, in which Hoffman starred opposite Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe and Robin Wright, told THR on Monday: “[Hoffman] was a man of fierce intelligence, exceptional talent and phenomenal commitment. He threw himself into playing Gunther Bachman in A Most Wanted Man in the most extraordinary way, he worked tirelessly on the German accent, always knowing precisely when his performance was just right. And he did it all with such humor, it was just a pleasure to watch him work. He will be very very sorely missed, and my heart breaks for his family.”
Pip Bulbeck in Sydney and Stuart Kemp in London contributed to this report.
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