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Actress Sophie Turner, in a lengthy interview on Dr. Phil’s podcast, opened up about how serious depression affected her four years into her “Game of Thrones” run — saying social media comments about her apparent weight gain, acne and “wooden” acting left her tearful, self-conscious and not wanting to get out of bed.
Turner was cast as the aristocratic Sansa Stark on the HBO fantasy series in 2009 when she was 13, so her puberty and adolescence have played out in front of an international TV audience. Season 8 premiered Sunday.
Turner, now 23, told Dr. Phil McGraw that her first four years on the show were “incredible,” despite the long hours, because she was getting paid to do something she loved. As McGraw noted, Turner also was playing an anchor character on a series that had become a global cultural phenomenon.
But at about 17, Turner explained that a combination of an adolescent metabolism, “a chemical imbalance” and a growing awareness of social media hate for Sansa and for her personally pushed her into a dark place.
“It started to go downhill,” Turner told McGraw during the revealing hour-long interview.
At one point, Turner said she was consumed by thoughts of suicide. The act of taking her own life became “just a weird fascination I used to have,” she said. However, she added she never would have been capable of hurting herself.
As Turner’s body was changing and developing, she said, she began to pay attention to people’s criticism of her on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
“There were a lot of weight comments,” Turner said. “Sansa has gained 10 pounds or Sansa lost 10 pounds or Sansa’s getting fat.”
“Or I had spotty skin, because I was a teenager, I would get comments about my skin, my weight or how I wasn’t a good actress,” she added. “I used to get called wooden a lot. I still do.”
Turner’s awareness of the social media attacks seems to coincide with growing debates about her character among “GoT” fans. Sansa started out in Season 1 as a self-centered, privileged teenager but quickly became a tormented pawn in the machinations of other — mostly male — characters.
Fans, along with women’s rights advocates, were particularly outraged when the writers in Season 5 decided to have Sansa brutally raped on her wedding night by the vile Ramsay Bolton. While Turner defended the scene, critics, including Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson, said the graphic way the rape was filmed undercut “the agency” that Sansa had begun to show in the series.
Turner explained to McGraw that the social media hate led to her internalize beliefs that she was indeed fat and “spotty.” She also said she didn’t think she deserved to have a role on “Game of Thrones,” a job that other young actresses would kill for.
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At the same time, Turner said the social media hate didn’t “cause” her depression, but “contributed” to it. She described how her depression left her wanting to leave the set, hole up in her bedroom and not want to go out or see anyone. Sometimes, Turner said, she and co-star Maisie Williams (who plays Sansa’s sister Arya) would leave the set, grab some snacks and eat in bed.
During months-long breaks between seasons, Turner said she had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, getting dressed or leaving her home. Turner said she moved out of her parents’ home when she was 18 and found an apartment in London, where it became easy to hide her mental health struggles from her family.
Turner explained that she is in a much better place these days, helped by a combination of medication, therapy and a refusal to pay much attention to social media. Turner also is engaged to musician Joe Jonas, and the couple plans to marry this summer: “It helps when someone tells you they love you every day,” she said.
During their interview, Turner described herself as a big fan of McGraw’s show and a friend of his son. She told McGraw that she wanted to speak out about her mental health struggles to let other people know it is OK to tell family or friends that they are feeling sad or depressed.
McGraw told Turner her fame gives her a unique platform for sharing that advocacy with millions of people.
“That’s something I want to do,” Turner told McGraw. “I want to make movies about (mental health awareness), or speak out about it. The payoff would be to help people not feel so alone and to feel encouraged to talk to other people about it.”
