Peter Doherty and Katia deVidas on ‘Stranger in My Own Skin’ About the ‘Terror and Danger’ of Drug Addiction

PERFECT PAIRING –

Oct. 6, 2023 – Though deVidas fears including the clip in the film will make her look like a “right bitch,” the couple agrees that it sheds an important light on an oft-overlooked aspect of addiction — the self-awareness that one needs help, despite an unwillingness to act on it.

“This is what blows your mind, because they really want to get away from it — I’m talking about addicts in general, not just Peter,” deVidas says. “But it’s always about the next fix.”

“Stranger in My Own Skin” also documents Doherty’s journey to recovery, as he commits to going to a rehab center in Thailand in 2014 — but keeps delaying his flight and bingeing on drugs. By this time, he and deVidas had grown extremely close, but the filmmaker still tried to capture it all from an objective lens, simply asking him why he refused to get on the plane instead of stepping in.

“We were best friends and falling in love, and so it was really because of Katia that I went to Thailand,” Doherty says. “I said [to the rehab center], ‘I’ll only go if they let Katia come and bring the camera,’ and then they turned around and said ‘OK’ and I was like, ‘Oh.’ It wasn’t really the plan at all to go. I wouldn’t have gone on my own.”