Tobacco battle helped Gwyneth Paltrow play alcoholic in new movie

LONDON - Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed that her own struggle with tobacco addiction helped her play an alcoholic in new movie ‘Country Strong’.

In the acclaimed new film, the Oscar-winning actress plays Kelly Canter - a fallen country performer battling personal problems and alcohol addiction who attempts to resurrect her career.

And she threw herself into her part by recalling her own experiences with addiction, remembering how she couldn’t give up nicotine even though her father Bruce died from smoking-related cancer in 2002.

“I understood what it was like. I used to be very addicted to cigarettes, which is obviously very different to where Kelly is,” the Daily Express quoted Paltrow as telling The Sun.

“So I did understand that thing of, ‘I know this is potentially going to give me cancer and I know it’s given my dad cancer, but I’m going to smoke it anyway,’ like that sort of disconnect.

“So I tried to extrapolate that out as much as possible, but what I didn’t understand was how you could wreck someone’s life or wreck your own life and then just keep going,” she said.

The actress turned to her ‘Iron Man’ co-star Robert Downey, Jr., who won his battles with drugs and booze, for advice on living with an addiction.

“I said, ‘Explain this to me - how you can cheat, how you can be a total disaster and really hurt people and just kind of wake up and have a cup of coffee? How does that work?’” the actress said.

“He explained it to me really well and I credit him with helping me to understand how addiction is in the present, in the physical,” she added. (ANI)