Police find 50 heroin packets at Hoffman's apartment

Detectives found almost 50 envelopes, branded “Ace of Spades,” containing what is believed to be heroin, in the apartment of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found dead on Sunday.

More than 20 used syringes in a plastic cup were also found with several other bags containing white powder.

Police sources revealed prescription drugs, including blood-pressure medication clonidine hydrochloride; addiction-treatment drug buprenorphine; Vyvanse, a drug used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; hydroxyzine, which can be used to treat anxiety; and methocarbamol, a muscle relaxer were also recovered during searches.

Hoffman, hailed as the finest character actor of his generation, had struggled with fame and addiction and had recently separated from his long-time partner Mimi O’Donnell.

The New York medical examiner’s office was last night conducting an autopsy after the actor died after an apparent drug overdose.

It was reported investigators are trying to track down surveillance video at a bank where a man told police he witnessed what he believed was Seymour Hoffman buying drugs from two men the night before his death.

A man told police he saw the actor withdraw large amounts of cash at an ATM at a bank near Hoffman’s West Village apartment at about 8pm Saturday night.

He said he saw Hoffman hand over the cash and appear to purchase drugs from two men, who appeared to be working together.

For more than 20 years, Hoffman mesmerised and entertained filmgoers with his portrayal of some of the most repellent and yet electrifying characters of the silver screen.

He transformed movies through calculatingly understated performances and his daring choice of roles, quietly stealing scenes from much bigger stars with his portrayals of misfits in films as diverse as Boogie Nights and The Talented Mr Ripley.

In 2006, he won an Oscar for his chilling turn as the brilliant but self-absorbed US author Truman Capote and was immediately flung into the A-list world of instantly recognised celebrities.

But, for all his success, Hoffman was reluctant in the limelight and, in an interview with Britain’s Guardian newspaper published in October 2011, said he thought everyone struggles with self-love.

“I think that’s pretty much the human condition, you know, waking up and trying to live your day in a way that you can go to sleep and feel OK about yourself,” he was quoted as saying.

He spoke about his struggles with drink and drugs as a drama student at New York University, and reportedly checked himself back into rehab in 2013 after having a relapse with heroin.

His career spanned more than 50 films, as well as TV and theatre credits, and in 2010 he became a director for the first time with Jack Goes Boating.

He appeared in Hollywood blockbusters such as 2006’s Mission Impossible III alongside Tom Cruise and Hunger Games, but was starred in some of director Paul Thomas Anderson’s best films.

He played striking roles in Anderson’s Magnolia, starring Cruise (1999); in Flawless, in which he plays a melodramatic drag queen opposite Robert De Niro, and in Punch-Drunk Love.

“Film’s hard when you don’t have any relationship with the director at all and you just show up,” Hoffman said in an interview with Esquire magazine in 2012.

“But that doesn’t happen so often with me. I’m lucky that way.”

Hoffman won three more Oscar nominations after Capote as a supporting actor playing a foul-mouthed CIA agent in Charlie Wilson’s War in 2008, Doubt in 2009 and The Master in 2013.