SALT LAKE CITY — “Game of Thrones” star Maisie Williams said fame from the HBO show negatively affected her mental health and self-esteem, CNN reports.
Williams said in an interview for the “Happy Place” podcast that she had difficulty living her teenage life while dealing with the fame that came from the success of “Game of Thrones.”
Williams, who was 13 when she was cast as Arya Stark on “Game of Thrones," said social media overwhelmed her at times, according to CNN.
- "It gets to a point where you're almost craving something negative, so you can just sit in a hole of sadness," Williams said.
Things have gotten better for Williams. But, she said, she still remembers the comments that impacted her the most, CNN reports.
- "I still lie in bed at, like, 11 o'clock at night telling myself all the things I hate about myself," Williams said. "It's just really terrifying that you're ever going to slip back into it. That's still something that I'm really working on, because I think that's really hard. It's really hard to feel sad and not feel completely defeated by it."
Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark on “Game of Thrones,” shared how body shaming affected her mental health in an interview with Marie Claire Australia, according to Refinery 29.
Turner said she also received negative online comments about her time on “Game of Thrones,” which impacted her mental health.
- “I have experienced mental illness firsthand, and I’ve seen what it can do to the people around (the sufferers) as well,” she said. “(In my teen years) my metabolism suddenly decided to fall to the depths of the ocean and I started to get spotty and gain weight, and all of this was happening to me on camera.”
Turner said last month on Dr. Phil McGraw’s “Phil in the Blanks” podcast that she used to get comments about her weight.
- “People used to say, ‘... Sansa gained 10 pounds,’ or ‘... Sansa needs to lose 10 pounds,’ or ‘Sansa got fat,’" she said. "It was just a lot of weight comments, or I would have spotty skin because I was a teenager and that’s normal."
But Turner told Marie Clairethat it’s OK to open up about mental health. It’s important to make sure no one is ever alone, she said.
- “Everyone needs a therapist, especially when people are constantly telling you (that) you’re not good enough and you don’t look good enough," she told Marie Claire. "I think it’s necessary to have someone to talk to, and to help you through that.”