The news of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death at 46 of an apparent drug overdose shocked Hollywood on Sunday, but his struggle with drugs started more than two decades ago.
Last May, Hoffman completed a 10-day detox for drug abuse, which included snorting heroin. He told TMZ then that he checked himself into rehab after using heroin for about a week after being clean for 23 years.
The thesp first went public with his history of drugs in 2006, during a “60 Minutes” interview, where he detailed what he experienced while fresh out of New York University’s drama school, lured by the fast life of the city.
“It was all that [drugs and alcohol], yeah, it was anything I could get my hands on… I liked it all,” he said.
However, Hoffman recognized early that he needed to stop.
“I went [to rehab], I got sober when I was 22 years old. You get panicked… and I got panicked for my life. It really was just that.”
Hoffman was recently seen in Sundance promoting his new indie “God’s Pocket.” While concerns of drug use weren’t publicly raised, he initially declined interviews before conceding to only talk about the movie.
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Hoffman was shooting “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2” and was to star in Showtime series “Happyish.”
He played addicts several times in films, including in “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” in which he killed a heroin dealer, and in “Love Liza,” where he played a grief-stricked man addicted to huffing gasoline.
