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When somebody is a “sucker for you”, it might just help how you look at yourself. Well, that was Sophie Turner’s experience, anyway. The Game Of Thrones actress went on the record to talk about her mental health struggles, particularly in the early seasons of filming the most-talked-about fantasy drama television series.
At the just 14-years-old, Turner was cast as Sansa Stark but soon succumbed to the horrible comments of online trolls. “People used to say, ‘Damn, Sansa gained 10 lbs’, or ‘Damn, Sansa needs to lose 10 lbs or ‘Sansa got fat’. It was just a lot of weight comments,” Turner told US psychologist Dr. Phil in a new podcast interview. “Or I would have spotty skin because I was a teenager, and that’s normal, and I used to get a lot of comments about my skin and my weight and how I wasn’t a good actress. I would just believe it. I would say, ‘Yeah, I am spotty. I am fat. I am a bad actress’. I would just believe it. I would get (the costume department) to tighten my corset a lot. I just got very, very self-conscious.”
Turner, 23, admitted to contemplating suicide a couple of times and found it incredibly hard to get up every morning. “It’s weird. I say I wasn’t very depressed when I was younger, but I used to think about suicide a lot when I was younger. I don’t know why though,” she said. “Maybe it’s just a weird fascination I used to have, but yeah, I used to think about it. I don’t think I ever would have gone through with it. I don’t know.”
“I just would cry and cry and cry over just getting changed and putting on clothes and be like, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t go outside. I have nothing that I want to do’,” she continued.
The actress credit therapy and meeting her fiancé, popstar and one-third of the Jonas Brothers Joe Jonas, with feeling better and changing her perception of herself. I (sometimes) don’t think I love myself at all, but I’m now with someone that makes me realise I do have some redeeming qualities, I suppose,” she said. “And when someone tells you they love you every day, it makes you really think about why that is, and I think that makes you love yourself a bit more. So yeah, I love myself.”
There really is power in love.
Sophie Turner stars in Game Of Thrones. It’s eighth and final season airs every Monday at 11am in Australia on Foxtel.
