David Harewood on sharing his mental health struggles on BBC Doc: ‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done’

David Harewood on sharing his mental health struggles on BBC Doc: ‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done’

making a BBC documentary, psychosis and meHis experiences with mental health issues led him to face his lowest point, actor and author David Harewood.Homeland, night manager, Super Girl), said Thursday at a television industry meeting. “It scared the hell out of me,” he said at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

When asked about her overall experience of disclosing her mental health issues and sharing her experiences with her doctor, she said, “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Referring specifically to doctors who have spent time in a psychiatric hospital, Harewood said: “You are reading your troubled self.

After a “very difficult time,” she went through a “healing period” and now feels comfortable talking about it, she shared.

When asked if he ever worried about his career being affected by being a doctor, he shared, “My God, I thought it was all over.” He said he was pleased when his mother said it looked “fantastic”. According to the actor, he also received many other positive responses and still hears people’s thanks. “It’s one of the most common forms of mental illness, but nobody talks about it,” he said.

Harewood also remembers holding down seven police officers in Britain who sat on top of him for three hours because they gave him an emergency calm. “I say this in (my) book: if I were in the United States, I would be dead,” he emphasized.

His struggle, said Harewood, “is one of the most common forms of mental illness, but nobody talks about it.”

Speaking on the second day of the festival, Harewood spoke about her career, the differences she saw between creative opportunities in the UK and the US, and how race, gender and nationality presented opportunities and challenges for her artistic expression.

In early reviews of her stage work in the early 1990s, Harewood said the credits often began with or emphasized that she was a black actress.

“All I can say is I would be fired,” he said. The press was very negative and very hostile towards the new generation of classically trained black actors. I didn’t really consider the importance of my color because it never mattered, or I thought it didn’t.

Suddenly he said, “Every day they made me swallow.”

He added: “Everything I did was politicized. “My skin has become politicized.”

Harewood was interviewed by Afua Hirsch, journalist and executive producer at Born in Me Productions. Harewood spoke with BBC President Richard Sharpe at the festival on Wednesday.

In October, it was announced that Harewood would make his directorial debut with the boxing biopic. For whom the bells toll. Feature: From Fulwell 73, behind the production banner backed by James Corden the late show s it’s cinderella – depicts the rivalry between two of Britain’s most famous boxers, Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn. Set in the 1990s, the film tells the story of a fierce rivalry between the wrestlers, culminating in their infamous WBO middleweight title fight.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

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