Film

Philip Seymour Hoffman Found Dead Of An Apparent Drug Overdose

The Oscar-winning actor was 46 years old.

by Rob Moran  3 February 2014

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Philip Seymour Hoffman — the beloved actor who made star turns in Boogie Nights (1997) and Almost Famous (2000), won the Best Actor Oscar for Capote (2005), and was most recently nominated for his supporting role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (2012) — has been found dead of an apparent drug overdose, aged 46. The actor was discovered in the bathroom of his Greenwich Village apartment by the NYPD, who were  responding to a call from friend David Katz, a screenwriter who’d been collaborating on a new project with Hoffman.

“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone,” Hoffman’s family said in a statement. “This is a tragic and sudden loss and we ask that you respect our privacy during this time of grieving. Please keep Phil in your thoughts and prayers.”

Hoffman publicly revealed his problems with substance abuse early last year, when he voluntarily checked himself into a heroin detox centre, to deal with “a problem he desperately wanted to nip in the bud.” To quote TMZ’s exclusive report at the time: “Hoffman — who struggled with substance abuse in the past but kicked the habit for 23 years — fell off the wagon more than a year ago, telling TMZ it started slowly with prescription pills, and recently escalated to snorting heroin.”

The actor had been at Sundance recently for the premieres of two new movies — God’s Pocket (directed by Mad Men‘s John Slattery and co-starring Christina Hendricks) and A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn’s new film based on the John Le Carre novel) — and was even following up his 2010 directorial debut Jack Goes Boating with a newly-announced project titled Ezekiel Moss, set to star Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal. Deadline reports that his role as Plutarch Heavensbee in Mockingjay Parts I and II may have to be “recast or reconfigured”, as shooting on the Hunger Games‘ finale had yet to be completed.

Hoffman is survived by his longtime partner, costume designer Mimi O’Donnell; their three children — daughters Willa (6) and Tallulah (7), and a son, Cooper (11); his sisters Jill and Emily; and his brother Gordy, a screenwriter who penned Hoffman’s melancholy 2002 festival hit, Love Liza.