. OK, we have some breaking news to share with you. We're gonna go with it now. The much admired, beloved Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman has been found dead today. Philip Seymour Hoffman was considered one of the greatest actors of his generation. I think Phil was one of the best, if not the best, actor I've worked with. By the age of 39, he'd won the Academy Award for best actor for his title role in Capote. The first time I saw Phil, it was like, 'Wow, 'that dude's an actor.' He took it to another level. At the peak of his career, he was staring in Hollywood blockbusters like Mission Impossible III and The Hunger Games trilogy. He could give you two minutes in a film, and you took those two minutes, and that was what you took out of it. But on the morning of the 2nd of February 2014,... 46-year-old Hoffman was found dead in his New York apartment. My gut instinct that night was that he was troubled by something. All right, we have some new information on Philip Seymour Hoffman's death. Law enforcement officials say he was found with a needle in his arm. TENSE MUSIC Dr Jason Payne-James is an internationally recognised specialist in forensic and legal medicine. Called on by the National Crime Agency, the Metropolitan Police and government task forces in the US and the UK, he provided evidence in the Soham murders and Baby P cases. Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead from a presumed heroin overdose with a needle in his arm. But is that really what killed him? I've reviewed the coroner's statement and the reports of his last few days and hours, and I believe these will help me unravel the events leading up to his tragic death. Saturday, 1st of February 2014, 8am ` Philip Seymour Hoffman's last day alive. In Greenwich Village, New York, he goes to the Chocolate Bar, his regular coffee shop. He orders a quadruple espresso with a splash of milk over ice. Hoffman is back in New York on a break from filming The Hunger Games. He's busier than ever. He's just filmed a pilot for a comedy series called Happyish, and he's directing his second film, Ezekiel, due to star Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal. But his personal life is in crisis. He separated from his partner of 14 years, Mimi O'Donnell, a costume designer who he met while working in the theatre. He's left the family home and their three children... and is living in an apartment around the corner alone. In the weeks leading to his death, Philip was seen looking, uh, dishevelled, looking bloated, unhealthy, looking a real mess. Looking at these photos, he's not a picture of health. He's overweight. He's smoking. We understand he's drinking a lot of coffee. He's doing what many people do when they're stressed. Hoffman's reputation as an exceptional actor was established very early on. I think Phil was one of the best, if not the best, actor I've worked with. He was very unique. Some actors act like themselves, and that's their best (CHUCKLES) role. But he could adapt to anything, really. Hoffman first grabbed audiences' attention worldwide in his show-stealing performance as the lonely and desperate boom operator Scotty in Boogie Nights. I remember seeing him in Boogie Nights, and just thinking, 'Wow, 'he actually really is an actor.' You could tell then. That character was so completely different, and just` He took it to another level with that tiny tank top and his stomach sticking out, and just he was a whole different person that went through things, and it was` it was amazing to see. It was just amazing. Although his role in the movie was brief, the part he played became iconic. Like so many Philip Seymour Hoffman roles, he wasn't the star of the film, and yet it was his role we remembered. He could give you two minutes in a film, and you took those two minutes, and that was what you took out of it. Hoffman made over 60 films in his career, but as well as being a star on screen, one of his greatest loves was the stage. I met Phil in 2005. That's when I started working with Labyrinth. He was fearless. No matter what the role was or what the project was, he saw something interesting in it, and he would just jump into it. He could play grotesque in a way that shocked you because it was so grotesque, but also shocked you because you liked the person so much. In 2005, at the age of 36, Hoffman played his first major leading role and won the Oscar for Capote, an acclaimed biopic about the famous American writer. 'Capote' really showed that he was the actor of his generation and he could do anything, he could play any role, and that was something that got directors really hungry to work with him. It meant that, you know, he became one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. But by the time of his death in February 2014, the pressures of work and stardom had taken their toll. When police searched Hoffman's apartment, journalist Chris Bucktin was at the scene. Police were very open about what they found to me. They talked about how drugs had played a major factor. What stood out in my mind when I was speaking with` The police also found a lot of prescription drugs. One of the drugs found in Hoffman's apartment was Vyvanse, and I find this interesting, because in the US Vyvanse is licenced to treat ADHD. ADHD is a condition with symptoms which include inattentiveness, impulsiveness and hyperactivity. Having looked at reports of his early life and his professional life, I see no evidence that Philip Seymour Hoffman suffered from ADHD. Indeed, by all accounts, Hoffman was driven and hard-working. He excelled at school, and in 1986, at the age of 19, he was accepted into New York's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. Those who worked with him describe him as diligent and focused. He's a very clean director, I felt, like very neat and very to the point, like he wasn't messy with how he did things. So why would Philip Seymour Hoffman be taking the ADHD drug Vyvanse? Vyvanse is also a powerful appetite suppressant, and many people abuse it to try and lose weight. So is it possible that's what Philip Seymour Hoffman was doing? . Hoffman was a regular at Automatic Slim's, close to his apartment, where bartender Kent Peterson got to know him well. He'd always have the cheeseburger, to my knowledge. Whenever I took care of him, that's all he ever had. You know, it's a good-sized cheeseburger, and` and fries come with it. Philip's weight fluctuated as he played different roles. Philip struggled with his weight throughout his life, and it became more apparent while he was on stage doing the Death of a Salesman, uh, where his weight had ballooned 50, 60 pounds. It's possible Philip Seymour Hoffman was using Vyvanse to control his weight, but in general it's not a good idea to self-medicate to do that. He may have been someone who used prescription drugs to deal with any condition, so I need to investigate his relationship with drugs further to understand the circumstances of his death. Hoffman's last day alive. CELL PHONE RINGS He takes a call from his assistant, who later tells the police he sounded fine. Hey. Hi. All right, yeah. I'm good. 30 minutes later, at 2pm, Hoffman leaves his Greenwich Village apartment and bumps into his estranged partner, Mimi, who lives around the corner, but his demeanour has changed dramatically. Mimi later reported he looked high. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) If true, it wouldn't have been the first time that Hoffman had dabbled with narcotics. Hoffman revealed in a TV interview that while at college in his early 20s, he had checked into rehab. In 2006, Philip Seymour Hoffman gave an interview ` a rare interview ` to CBS, 60 Minutes, in which he spoke about his drug addiction. Uh, when he was about the age of 22, he was talking about. He said, 'I` I took everything I could get my hands on, and I liked it,' is what he said. So, we find Philip in his early 20s in New York. He's part of that Bohemian subculture, where he's got access to drink and drugs, and we know from Philip himself that he's an all-in kind of guy ` anything he can get his hands on. Hoffman also revealed that going to rehab was a conscious attempt to get help. When asked the reason why he stopped, he said, 'Because I got panicked for my life,' was the exact phrase that he used ` panicked for my life. He was that scared about dying at a young age. I` He basically took himself into rehab, not only for drugs but for alcohol as well, which is really` another big problem that he had. I think when many people talk about addiction, it's an anecdote ` it's an easy anecdote ` and it's something that's kind of almost been rehearsed, and it's patter. With him, you never felt that it was patter. It was` As soon as he talked about it, you sensed he didn't want to. You sensed it was still incredibly painful. After leaving drama school in 1989, Hoffman stayed sober for the next 23 years. During his long period of sobriety in 1999, Philip met his partner, Mimi, and they had three children ` Cooper, Willa and Tallulah. They loved him. He loved them, you know, and you saw them, cos I would see them in the neighbourhood all the time. You know, and they were always at the theatre. It's like the theatre company was like a family, and they were just part of the family. They were very grounded kids. They went to a public school. It was a very very simple life he wanted for them. His acting career also flourished, and he started getting parts in major Hollywood films, such as Scent of a Woman, but Hoffman always remained in touch with his roots, directing plays in respected local theatre the Labyrinth. Being directed by Phil ` he was, um,... it was a little daunting, cos it's Phil. But then he would mix it up with you, no matter who you were, and talk about craft. Like, he got` he got off on talking about craft. It made me feel really good knowing that this person that I looked up to and-and, uh, loved his work and respected his work took interest in my work and was willing to help me. During these years, Hoffman continued to keep away from drugs and alcohol. In 2008, he was on the set of Synecdoche, New York ` a movie about a theatre director who loses his wife and has a breakdown. He would come to me ` no one else would be there ` and we'd sit in the make-up trailer, and he would sit there sometimes and we wouldn't say anything, and there were some days where we would joke around. One night after filming, uh, we were going to the bar, and we asked him to come out with us, you know, come drinking, and he declined, and I was a kid then, and I had the audacity to ask him why not, you know? So I said, 'Why can't you come out?' And he said, 'No, I don't drink any more. I don't do anything any more. I'm sober.' For someone with Philip's history of addiction, it's absolutely crucial to avoid any substance that could trigger a relapse. I wonder whether during this period of not taking any drink or taking any drugs, Philip had another kind of addiction ` one that was hidden in plain sight. He was a workaholic. I think his work ethic was tremendous. He took on every role that came his way. He was a very immersive actor, and I wonder whether he got his buzz and his excitement this way. But the desire to start using again is never far away from the mind of an addict. September 2011 ` just over two years before his death ` shooting on Hoffman's latest film, The Master, is completed. Hoffman is attending the wrap party. Three years in the making, The Master is one of the most intensive films of his career. Philip was playing a very difficult character for him to` to grapple with ` someone quite dark. He poured his heart into that role. He lived and breathed that character for three years. Someone once said to him, 'Did you enjoy playing that part?' And he was gobsmacked that anyone could even ask. It was so intense, and it took so much out of him, that there couldn't have been a more inappropriate word. He's at this wrap party; everyone's celebrating. He's given his absolute all to this director, to this role. He's immersed himself in it, and what a huge relief for it to be finally over. But for an addict, that temptation is never far away. FAINT CONVERSATION OMINOUS MUSIC At the wrap party, Hoffman's resolve is broken. He takes a drink. There's no turning back. He said, 'I'm not interested in drinking a little bit.' He couldn't give a shit about social drinking. There was nothing social about drinking to him. Drink was something you did and did and did and did till you were obliterated. So when Mimi had come across her husband on the street on the day of his death, could he have been merely drunk? To me this description doesn't suggest alcohol, and looking at the coroner's statement, there is no mention of alcohol in his system, so alcohol doesn't appear to have played any part in his behaviour on the day of his death, nor did it play any part in the cause of his death. But interestingly, I see that the coroner reports that he'd been taking benzodiazepines, and benzodiazepines are a group of drugs with many uses, one of which includes the treatment of alcohol dependence. Was Philip Seymour Hoffman self-medicating to treat alcoholism? Benzodiazepines affect neurotransmitters in the brain, resulting in calming, but they also may be used in the shorter term to deal with the physical symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. The presence of benzodiazepines in his system suggest to me that he may have been trying to do something about his alcohol addiction. . September 2012, Venice, Italy. Just a few months after his fall from sobriety, Hoffman's behaviour is again causing concern. Nice to meet you. When Philip Seymour Hoffman was in Venice at the Venice film festival promoting the movie The Master, uh, there was a lot of speculation about his` his state of health. There was interviews being given, press conference being given, interviews one-on-one where he was falling asleep. TENSE MUSIC MUSIC CONTINUES Hoffman blamed his behaviour on jet lag, but friends later reported that prior to his death, he'd been taking the prescription drug OxyContin. OxyContin is an extremely powerful painkiller that can be used to treat serious pain in joints and in the skeletal system. One of its side effects is that it can cause drowsiness. But its effects are very similar to heroin, and it's very addictive. If you're someone who's had a history of addiction, particularly heroin, OxyContin is an unwise drug to use, because of its similarities to heroin and use of it may initiate a relapse. 14th of May 2013 ` for the last seven months, Hoffman has struggled to keep his addictions at bay, but the battle to stay clean has failed. Forget Lindsay Lohan, the latest celebrity to enter rehab is now Philip Seymour Hoffman. According to reports, the Oscar-winning actor was being treated for substance abuse that included pill taking and snorting heroin. He recognised the situation as he had done back when he was 22 years old a-and feared that he would start using heroin intravenously. His stay in the East Coast rehabilitation clinic lasts for 10 days. Addiction is a disease that is very complex, and a person needs an awful lot of support to come to terms with it, a-and` and deal with it on almost a daily basis ` almost a moment-to-moment basis. Out of rehab, Hoffman goes straight back into work, filming on set for the movie God's Pocket, followed by The Hunger Games. He's thrown himself straight back into work, for me, almost seamlessly moving from one addiction to another. He's working very hard again. He's putting himself under pressure again and, I think, trying to get his buzz from the rhythm of work again. In September ` just a few months out of rehab and five months before his death ` he films the pilot for his first major TV role in Happyish. But during filming, there are signs that things are starting to go wrong again. There was one day that we had a rehearsal that, you know, he sort of wasn't as tight as usual, wasn't as on it, but I also knew that he was doing, like, three different projects at the same time, so maybe he was tired. But I didn't realise there was more than that happening. By December 2013, reports in the New York Daily Post reveal that Hoffman relapses and is taking heroin again. His partner, Mimi, asks him to leave the family home. Mimi eventually had to ask him to leave for the sake of their relationship and for the sake of their kids. She must have been at her wit's end seeing the man that she loved in this grip of, uh, addiction. You know, after so long, after so many ups and downs with him, it was a case of tough love was the` was the stick, and the carrot was the fact that one day they would be back together in this loving family life again. OMINOUS MUSIC He'd lost his security and his anchor. He loves his family. He loves his children, and he has to go away and deal with his addiction, and I think we'd find him in an emotionally vulnerable space. He would have probably felt very depressed, very isolated and very cut off from his family support. OMINOUS MUSIC Two weeks before Hoffman's death. Despite his turbulent personal life, he still needs to honour his work commitments. At the Sundance Film Festival just weeks before his death, Philip was promoting A Most Wanted Man, which turned out to be his last film, and he was seen looking dishevelled, seen looking a mess. During that film festival, John Arundel ` he's a co-publisher of Washington Life Magazine ` went up to Philip Seymour Hoffman not recognising who he was; he looked so dishevelled. He asked him what he did. Philip Seymour Hoffman replies, 'I'm a heroin addict.' So we're beginning to build up the complex picture of Philip Seymour Hoffman's drug and alcohol problems. We know from the coroner's statement that he had in his system at the time of his death benzodiazepines and heroin, but that same statement also reveals the presence of another drug that may have significantly contributed to his death, and that drug is cocaine. Three days before his death. On a break from a gruelling shoot for The Hunger Games, Hoffman is in a bar at Atlanta, Georgia. He was seen with a woman. They were drinking ` drinking quite heavily. But it's not his drinking that's caught people's attention. What stood out amongst people's minds was how many times this guy kept on going to the bathroom. It wasn't just once or twice. It was about a dozen times. The pattern of behaviour described is very typical of someone binging on a drug. DRAMATIC MUSIC Snorting a drug like cocaine is one of the quickest ways of getting it into your bloodstream. It passes rapidly to the brain,... where it has both physical and psychological effects. The physical effects include raised blood pressure, raised pulse rate, but the psychological effects are the ones that Philip Seymour Hoffman really wants. They are a feeling of euphoria, of well-being, of excitement. OMINOUS MUSIC After 15 minutes or so, those effects rapidly dissipate. And after 30 minutes or so, they're almost gone. And that's why this cycle of binging, of repeated use, is so common amongst those using cocaine. TENSE MUSIC After his session in the bar, Hoffman takes a flight home to New York. He's photographed passed out on an airport buggy and again on the plane. These are the last photos ever taken of Philip Seymour Hoffman. With addiction, it's like throwing a virus into the hard drive. Uh, it corrupts the brain, and the person is forever changed, and trying to get themselves under control has to become the most important thing to them. But for Philip, he's lost control. He's now in the grip of the addiction. It's completely got hold of him, and he can't stop. . Two days before his death. After his binge in the Atlanta bar, Philip Seymour Hoffman is spotted in his New York neighbourhood. The last time I saw Phil was the Friday. He was excited about shooting Happyish. It was like any other time I would bump into him, you know, on the street. It's like, 'Hey,' you know, and then he was just regular to me, you know? Uh, it was cold out. He had his Carhartt on. He had his, you know, jacket on and hoodie and whatever. And, um, you know, we just talked for a couple of minutes and went about our business. CELL PHONE RINGS Hoffman's in his Greenwich Village apartment alone. He speaks with Mimi, this time on the phone. CELL PHONE CONTINUES RINGING They make arrangements for him to collect their three children the next morning, but she later reports to the police he sounded high when they spoke. From Mimi's description of how Philip Seymour Hoffman sounded on the phone, it's impossible to say what drugs he'd taken. What we do know, however, is whatever he had taken, he was able an hour later to leave his apartment. An hour after the call with Mimi, Hoffman is seen with two men in a deli near his apartment. OMINOUS MUSIC At the deli, he goes straight to the cash point, where he's seen by a witness withdrawing $1200 in separate transactions of $200 each. Speculation and the inference amongst us all was that was his dealers supplying him with the drugs. At the time of Philip's death, there was a real problem on the East Coast with heroin that had been mixed with fentanyl. This is the last time he's seen alive. He's in Automatic Slim's, a bar around the corner from his apartment. DANCE MUSIC PLAYS Phil would come in quite regularly. You know, he knew all of our names, and this was his favourite place. Hoffman is in the bar with two men. It seemed like he was kind of in a business interaction with the two gentlemen. So I went to Phil's table. I asked him how he was. I said I hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks and it was good to have him back. Now, he always would engage, um, and he just looked up at me, you know, like... and then back down, which I thought was odd. My gut instinct that night was that he was troubled by something. Hoffman orders his usual cheeseburger and drinks a non-alcoholic cranberry-and-soda. The last night of Phil's life, he left right around quarter to 11. TENSE MUSIC No one knows what happens next, but what we do know from the coroner's statement is that 12 hours later he's found dead with a needle in his arm. MELANCHOLIC MUSIC MELANCHOLIC MUSIC CONTINUES OMINOUS MUSIC MUSIC DISTORTS Mimi and the children are waiting for Hoffman to come and collect them. DIAL TONE CELL PHONE RINGS Worried, she asks a friend to check on him. When he and Hoffman's assistant arrive,... he's already dead. CNN breaking news. Tragic news to bring you this afternoon. It was Super Bowl Sunday the next morning. I came in early to the bar to set up and, uh, saw a lot of news vans, had no idea what it was about. I said, 'What's going on with all the news vans?' And they're like, 'Oh, you didn't hear? 'Philip Seymour Hoffman had died last night.' And, uh, I was like, 'What? I just took care of him last night.' It blew my mind. Blew my mind, yeah. When I heard about Phil's death, I was on a bus, and somebody had tweeted to me. I'm on my phone. I couldn't open it. I couldn't, you know, scroll down to` Like I was just kinda reading bits and parts of it, and... and I saw 'dead', and I just, um` I couldn't... I couldn't right then, um... I had to just, sort of,... I wasn't dealing with that on the bus. MELANCHOLIC MUSIC When I found out that Phil had died of substance abuse, I was really mad. I was really angry, you know. I said, 'Well, man, that guy was sober for all these years,' an-and I... didn't think that he had a problem any more, and obviously he did, and I don't know how covered up it was, and I was really angry. We have this just in on the investigation into Philip Seymour Hoffman's death. Close to 50 bags of heroin, all found in his apartment according to two law-enforcement sources. As well as this huge supply of heroin, the NYPD found a whole array of drug paraphernalia, including 20 hypodermic needles. Just days after Hoffman's death, the press begin to draw their own conclusions. The press speculate that a speedball killed him ` that is a mixture of cocaine and heroin injected intravenously. However, the coroner's statement is quite clear. It gives no suggestion as how those drugs were administered, whether they were injected or whether, for example, the cocaine was taken earlier by snorting. As far as I can see, the press reports that Philip Seymour Hoffman died from a speedball injection are not confirmed. So if a speedball is not ultimately responsible for Hoffman's death, could it be the quality of the drug he was taking? There were reports at the time of Philip Seymour Hoffman's death of the availability of a very dangerous supply of heroin along the East Coast of America in cities including New York. A more potent and lethal form of heroin. Super-charged heroin mixed with the powerful painkiller fentanyl. Tainted heroin is turning up everywhere in the north-east, where there have been dozens of fentanyl-related overdoses. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid used in pain relief after cancer or major surgery. It's said to be 50 times more potent than morphine. But if it's cut with heroin and injected unknowingly by a drug addict, there is a very very real risk of death due to respiratory depression. Had Philip Seymour Hoffman become the latest victim of this lethal form of heroin? In Hoffman's apartment, the NYPD found 50 packets of heroin labelled Ace of Spades, which were sent for testing. When tests were conducted on the bags of heroin seized from Philip Seymour Hoffman's apartment, they were found to be uncontaminated with no fentanyl. It was normal street heroin. When Hoffman's body was taken for autopsy, the initial results were inconclusive. But in the case of drugs overdose, it would be usual for the investigators to consider the possibility of suicide. Separated from his partner of 14 years and his three young children, living alone in rented accommodation, could Hoffman have wanted to take his own life? DRAMATIC MUSIC I don't believe Phil... No, I don't believe Phil committed suicide. I don't believe he wanted to leave his children, leave his life, leave all the people and the family` just everybody that he knew so well and was so tight with. I mean, no, no, not at all. Phil would never` No, definitely not suicide. Absolutely not. There's no w... no way in the world. That was a complete accident for sure that` It was an accident. The coroner clearly states here that his death has been recorded as an accident, so suicide is ruled out. . This has been a baffling case, but now I think I've worked out how he died. Philip Seymour Hoffman has a complex relationship with and a reliance on drugs. The reports say that Vyvanse was recovered from his apartment, and Vyvanse is an amphetamine, and the coroner's statement shows that he did indeed have amphetamine in his system. Amphetamine is a central nervous system stimulant, and it works by affecting the levels of chemical neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, in the brain and can create a sense of euphoria. Hoffman may have been taking the amphetamines as an appetite suppressant to control his weight. But I've seen photos of him at the time of his death, and he's overweight, so I suspect this is not what he was using it for. I believe he was using the amphetamines to get high. The coroner's statement reported that Hoffman also had benzodiazepines in his system, which can be used to treat the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. But he was seen three days before his death drinking in a bar in Atlanta, so I suspect he wasn't using them for alcohol withdrawal. Benzodiazepines also affect neurotransmitters in the brain, and their effects are more sedating or calming, so it can give a feeling of light-headedness. I suspect, like amphetamines, he was using them to get high. There's no evidence that these drugs were prescribed by a doctor, so I suspect that he was abusing them. We know from Mimi's description to the police that Hoffman had appeared high in the afternoon and then again in the evening on the day before he was found dead. The coroner states that Hoffman took cocaine. And we also know he's taken heroin. Cocaine, as a stimulant drug, also affects neurotransmitters in the brain, such as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, and its effects result in an intense feeling of euphoria. The effect of heroin in the brain is to cause opiate molecules to bind to and activate receptors in the reward centre of the brain. This stimulates the release of chemicals such a dopamine, which can cause a sensation of pleasure. And so with these powerful stimulants and powerful depressants, you might think they'd cancel each other out, but they don't. They interact in very complex ways, and I suspect that Philip Seymour Hoffman had taken this combination of drugs on many occasions before without serious consequence. And the problem is when you take a combination of drugs, you may be lucky a lot of the time, but one day that luck will run out. So I think it's the drugs in combination that have killed him, not one drug in isolation. He's died due to a mixed-drug intoxication. And in many respects, it was just simply bad luck. But how precisely did he die? For me the most significant thing is that he had a needle and syringe in his arm at the time of his death, and that means things must have happened rapidly. He didn't have time to remove the needle. He didn't have time to summon help. And that then leads me on to two further conclusions ` either his heart stopped or his brain stopped. Whichever it was, it was instant. As the news of Hoffman's death spread, Hollywood was shocked and saddened. Who knows what he would have been able to do, but we're left with a legacy. Um, I'm honestly sorry and upset by it. He gave so much of himself, um, on film, but this is pretty heart-breaking, really. It's just unfair to his family. It's unfair to the world, you know, that loved him as an actor. But that's life, right? I mean, you play with fire; you get burned. Sometimes you die; sometimes, uh, you make it out. On the 5th of February, three days after Hoffman's death, the lights on Broadway were dimmed and a candlelight vigil was held in his memory outside his beloved Labyrinth theatre. I did, uh, attend the candlelight vigil, and the courtyard was filled with people, and there was just a quiet moment that was, you know, beautiful ` white candles and just people. I still have my candle. So much of what we watch these days seems good at the time, then you forget it straightaway. With him, you remember every performance.