Hannah Murray, who starred as Cassie on Skins and Gilly on Game of Thrones, opened up about why she left her acting career behind her
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Murray said the fame was 'quite overwhelming' for her, and she felt bad for not feeling 'grateful'
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In her new memoir, Murray details how her acting career led her to join a wellness cult and have a psychotic episode
Hannah Murray doesn't regret giving up acting.
Murray, 36, opened up about her decision to leave Hollywood behind in a sprawling interview forThe Guardian, published May 23. Murray, who starred as Cassie onSkinsand Gilly onGame of Thrones, discussed how her acting career, in part, led her on a path tojoining a wellness cultand having a psychotic episode.
She toldThe Guardianthat she often thinks, “Thank God I don't act any more.” She said that thinking about not being “an actor any more” brings her “a real surge of joy.”
Murray decided to be an actor at age 11, after watching a play about woodland creatures and aliens who became friends. At 16, she auditioned forSkins, which premiered in 2007. She was cast as Cassie on her 17th birthday and filmed seasons 1 and 2 in quick succession, before she went off to university. “I missed a lot of school in that final year,” she said.
When her university career began, the show had become “this huge thing.” The series was not only successful on TV in the U.K. (and helped launch the careers ofNicholas Hoult,Dev Patel,Daniel Kaluuya, Jack O'Connell and her fellowGame of ThronesalumJoe Dempsie) but became a cult favorite in the U.S., too. Her new fame was “quite overwhelming.”
Cassie's plot line dealt with her eating disorder, and Murray toldThe Guardianshe was “addicted” to reading how people reacted to her online. “It was horrible, like the sewer of the internet; for every person saying my body was ‘thinspiration,' there was someone else saying: ‘She's disgusting,' ” she said.
While studying at Cambridge, she starred in “three films over the three years, and was also going to London every week to audition,” while still handing in her coursework on time.
Years later, Murray was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. While she was an actress, she said, “I struggled for a long time with this idea that I wasn't entitled to feel as sad as I did. There wasn't anything wrong with me. I was privileged to have this incredible career. Why couldn't I just be happy all the time? Be grateful.”
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She said that finally getting a diagnosis was a “big relief” and helped her look at her “emotional landscape” in a new way.
Murray toldThe Guardianthat as Cassie, she was often asked invasive questions about her weight. Once she was cast as Gilly onGame of Thronesin 2012, she found more fame — and entitled fans. She said she was also drinking a lot, doing drugs and engaging in reckless sex.
“That was a big factor of being an actor: being chosen for a role makes you feel incredibly special,” Murray said. “But it lasts only for that project. I was on this hamster wheel of, ‘Where's the thing that's going to make me feel special forever?' ”
In Murray's upcoming book,The Make-Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness, she chronicles how her search to feel better about her life led her into a wellness cult. After her psychotic episode and getting her diagnosis, she left acting for good; her last movie was 2018's Charlie Says, about the Manson Family.
"I'm very very proud of this book, which has taken seven years to write,”Murray told PEOPLE in January. “Throughout that process, I've felt empowered to be telling my own story and reclaiming my own narrative. I'm excited to share this story with readers, to let them inside a chapter of my life that was sometimes magical, sometimes chaotic, sometimes painful and dark.”
“The events ofThe Make-Believewere intensely challenging to live through, but the journey of writing about them has been the most powerfully rewarding thing I've ever known,” she said.
The Make-Believewill be published on June 23 and is available for preorder, wherever books are sold.
Read the original article onPeople
