George Clooney: Philip Seymour Hoffman's death 'senseless'

NEW YORK, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- George Clooney paid tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman, who passed away this weekend, at the premiere of The Monuments Men in New York Tuesday night.

Before introducing the movie, which also stars Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Jean Dujardin and Hugh Bonneville, Clooney addressed "the elephant in the room."

“I wanted to start by saying it’s very odd to be here in New York, particularly a couple of days after a good friend of ours has passed away," he told the audience. "It makes it difficult, and I think it’s the elephant in the room for a lot of us here. It’s senseless and it’s sad, but he will be greatly missed. Phil will be greatly missed. It’s hard to be here tonight with that... weighing over us, but I wanted to say that.”

And on the red carpet, he said the film community was struggling to "put on a brave face" in the wake of Hoffman's passing.

“Phil is a good friend to a lot of us in the community," he said. "And it makes it very difficult to be here 48 hours in this town after he died."

"Everybody’s here kind of putting on a brave face to get through this because it’s a pretty traumatic thing. We’re going to miss him a lot and it’s senseless in a lot of ways. We miss him.”

Hoffman died of a suspected heroin overdose in his Manhattan apartment Sunday at the age of 46. He had several projects in the works at the time of his death, including the final two installments of The Hunger Games, which he had nearly finished filming.

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