Sharon Horgan opens up on mental health battle and pill that helps
Actor Sharon Horgan has revealed she had to have therapy and now takes medication for anxiety, as she was left sweating and her heart was 'going like crazy'. The writer has spoken to Louis Theroux for the latest episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast.
Sharon Horgan is the Irish actress, writer, producer, and comedian who co-created and starred in the critically acclaimed TV shows Catastrophe, with Rob Delaney, and Bad Sisters, which she also executive produced.
She has also worked on Motherland, Divorce, and This Way Up alongside Aisling Bea. In the latest episode of Louis's podcast, Sharon discusses pre-award show anxiety, writers' rooms and winding career paths - as well as nits.
READ MORE: Family's DNA plea over taxi driver murdered with cheesewire
READ MORE: Inventor of food we all have in our cupboards dies, aged 97
Sharon told Louis she had had therapy to tackle anxiety, and went on to use medication. She said: "When you have an increased heart rate, and when all those things start happening to you physically, that's when you kind of step outside of yourself, because you're telling yourself to calm down, you're telling yourself to be less nervous, and you're kind of like admonishing yourself. And all that is making you feel a bit disembodied. So they [beta blockers] do something very practical physically, but I think the sort of mental stuff that goes with it. It has had a real calming effect on me and in situations that would normally kind of terrify me.
"When we were at the Critics' Choice Awards last year, me and [Eve Hewson] were going out to present an award and that place is insane. It's like Cate Blanchett's there, there's Nicole Kidman, there's Steven Spielberg and it's insane and you're going out to present an award and you need to be funny and you need to also feel relaxed. And I took it and I went out on stage and I was like, 'I'm actually fine, happy to be here'. Whereas before I swear to God, I couldn't, it was the worst. I would hear my voice, my heart would be going crazy. I'd be sweating. I'd be, my, my voice would wobble, but also get higher like I wasn't getting enough oxygen to my brain.
"And, yeah, it was nothing. It wasn't like I was flat, it was just like, I'm absolutely fine. So from then on, I kind of take them in any sort of situation that would create some kind of anxiety."
Sharon also spoke about her first break - and having nits - adding: "I was putting on plays above pubs and that, but I was just too sort of scared to, you know, have a proper go. Like I remember getting my first break, getting a radio pilot when I hadn't been at the job centre that long.
"And I turned up to make the pilot with my yellow job centre folder with all my scripts in it. At the time I had nits. I don't know who I got them from, but I was squatting in a manor house in North London while I was working the job and I got nits off some, like, skank. And then, I remember being in the reception for the BBC, I'm like, what am I doing here?
"And Joanna Lumley was there, and I was so nervous I'd given her nits. And it was just sort of a weird two worlds colliding kind of thing."
Sharon said she also had to go to 'a dark place' while writing Bad Sisters. She said: "When I was making Bad Sisters, I got really into true crime and I allowed it because I was like, this is research, you know, I'd never written a thriller before or anything around a murder or any kind of cop story. And so I felt I was fully justified in watching and listening to terrible stories about women killing their husbands.
"It kind of took me to a really dark place and it was kind of like I could only be sated by, by that kind of content and I could only fall asleep if I was listening to, you know, a story about some brutal murder in my ears and I had to get out of it. So, at the moment I'm developing this thing, which is much more, kind of grounded and to do with relationships and stuff. I'm more sort of like, I want to watch love stories and I want to read about, you know, breakdowns of relationships. And anytime I find myself going online to watch anything that's, you know, not connected to that, I know it's just like salacious kind of, I'm just like feeding my beast. So like the, the Depp and Heard thing, like, what did I? get from that. Like, nothing, you know? "
The Louis Theroux Podcast is available on Spotify now.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Gizmodo
an hour ago
- Gizmodo
‘Doctor Who' Might Bring Back David Tennant to Meet Billie Piper Again
It's never a good idea to put too much trust in rumors. But considering there were rumors online that correctly predicted how Ncuti Gatwa's run on Doctor Who would end—with the Fifteenth Doctor regenerating into someone who looked a lot like former companion Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper—you can't rule them out, either. The latest suggests that Piper's return may be for a special purpose: a standalone special that would reunite her with former co-star David Tennant. This speculation was reported by UK papers the Mirror and the Sun, the latter of which which cites an unnamed source teasing 'talk about a possible one-off project to celebrate the 20th anniversary' of the BBC's revival of Doctor Who in 2005. This story couldn't be more vague (the Sun piece goes on to note that 'there have been some ideas floated about, with the thought of maybe bringing David and Billie back together for one last hurrah') and obviously nothing official has been confirmed. The Sun's unnamed source also suggests this potential special could reunite Piper (as Rose) and Tennant (as the version of the Doctor that bi-generated in the 60th anniversary special then settled in with Catherine Tate's Donna Noble and her family). The timing of this rumor comes as Doctor Who fans are wondering what lies ahead for the long-running sci-fi show, which has yet to announce any future plans following Gatwa's final episode. That includes whether or not the BBC and Disney will continue to collaborate on its production; whether or not Russell T Davies would remain as showrunner; and just what Piper's appearance at the end of 'The Reality War' actually means—is she the Sixteenth Doctor? And if not, uh, what is she then? The idea of a Piper-Tennant reunion special would make sense in some ways. Tennant is such a beloved Doctor that he's played two different iterations of the character already, and even though the Fourteenth Doctor is still a very recent memory, most fans would still welcome him back a third time, especially if it means a re-team with Rose. It could be the right move for a show that's navigating some rocky territory at the moment. Or, it could just be a wild rumor that amounts to nothing. What do you think about a Tennant-Piper reunion as the next step for Doctor Who?
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Day of the Jackal' author Frederick Forsyth dies at 86
LONDON (AP) — Frederick Forsyth, the British author of 'The Day of the Jackal" and other bestselling thrillers, has died after a brief illness, his literary agent said Monday. He was 86. Jonathan Lloyd, his agent, said Forsyth died at home early Monday surrounded by his family. 'We mourn the passing of one of the world's greatest thriller writers," Lloyd said. Forsyth served as a Royal Air Force pilot before becoming a foreign correspondent and a novelist. In 2015, he told the BBC that he had also worked for the British intelligence agency MI6 for many years, starting from when he covered a civil war in Nigeria in the 1960s. 'The Day of the Jackal,' published in 1971, propelled him into global fame. The political thriller about a professional assassin was made into a film in 1973 and more recently a television series starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch. He wrote more than 25 books including 'The Afghan,' 'The Kill List,' 'The Dogs of War" and 'The Fist of God" that have sold over 75 million copies, Lloyd said. His publisher, Bill Scott-Kerr, said that 'Revenge of Odessa,' a sequel to the 1974 book 'The Odessa File" that Forsyth worked on with fellow thriller author Tony Kent, will be published in August.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
'Day of the Jackal' author Frederick Forsyth dies at 86
LONDON (AP) — Frederick Forsyth, the British author of 'The Day of the Jackal" and other bestselling thrillers, has died after a brief illness, his literary agent said Monday. He was 86. Jonathan Lloyd, his agent, said Forsyth died at home early Monday surrounded by his family. 'We mourn the passing of one of the world's greatest thriller writers," Lloyd said. Forsyth served as a Royal Air Force pilot before becoming a foreign correspondent and a novelist. In 2015, he told the BBC that he had also worked for the British intelligence agency MI6 for many years, starting from when he covered a civil war in Nigeria in the 1960s. 'The Day of the Jackal,' published in 1971, propelled him into global fame. The political thriller about a professional assassin was made into a film in 1973 and more recently a television series starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch. He wrote more than 25 books including 'The Afghan,' 'The Kill List,' 'The Dogs of War" and 'The Fist of God" that have sold over 75 million copies, Lloyd said. His publisher, Bill Scott-Kerr, said that 'Revenge of Odessa,' a sequel to the 1974 book 'The Odessa File" that Forsyth worked on with fellow thriller author Tony Kent, will be published in August.
