Roger Ebert Wanted Philip Seymour Hoffman To Play Him In A Movie

Roger Ebert reviewed thousands of films during his 46-year career, but the Pulitzer Prize winner’s most fantastic visions may have been off-screen.

“He used to visit the afterlife,” his widow, Chaz Ebert, exclusively reveals to Closer. “He was so at peace, and he wanted to go there.

“The week before he passed last year [on April 4], he would talk about this expansive, beautiful world where the past, present and future all existed simultaneously and that there was a divine presence.”

Chaz, married to Roger for 21 years, thought his medication may have caused the visions, but doctors told her they’d reduced it.

“I really do believe that the man that Roger was, and is, continues,” she shares.

If so, he may be in good company: at Sundance in January to promote her documentary about Roger, “Life Itself,” Chaz revealed another talent was often on his mind.

“Roger always said, ‘If you ever need someone to play me, I want Philip Seymour Hoffman,’” she says.