Actor Samuel L Jackson and wife, actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson. Photo / Getty Images

Samuel L. Jackson has opened up about the harrowing addiction that nearly derailed his career and how his wife saved his life.

In an exclusive interview with PeopleTV's entertainment news programme People, available to stream on Flash, the 73-year-old Oscar-nominated actor spoke about his battle with drugs and how his wife LaTayna Richardson Jackson helped him through his problem.

The Pulp Fiction star has been sober for 30 years. His addiction started with marijuana, LSD and crack.

"As she [LaTayna] referred to that time as 'villa in hell'," Samuel told the programme.

"I had basically moved into the basement of our brownstone.

"I was like the troll in the basement, and every now and then I'd come upstairs and hover around to do something.

"I was addicted and being crazy."

The Avengers actor hit rock bottom when LaTayna and their daughter Zoe, who was 8 at the time, found him passed out facedown on the kitchen floor. LaTayna put him in rehab.

"She hung in there," he said.

"She could've just said, 'Get out,' and left me into the world, let me go and be whatever I was going to be."

LaTanya, 72, said she couldn't do that to her husband.

"I felt as though God had spoken to me and said, 'Now, you can't leave this young man like this. Give him some help. And then, if you feel like leaving afterwards, we'll talk about it.'", she said.

A week after completing rehab, Samuel was cast in Spike Lee's 1991 movie, Jungle Fever, where he played Wesley Snipes' crack-addicted brother.

After Jungle Fever, the actor's career took off. To date, his films have raked in nearly US$20 billion worldwide.

"I didn't have time to stop and think about my addiction," he said.

"My life was changing artistically to a point where it was like all the things I had wished that I could do when I was that young drunk actor running around New York started happening.

"In my mind, if I did any of the things that I used to do, all those new things would be taken away from me because I knew how easy it was to slide down the other side.

"You go down quicker than you go up."