Actress Sophie Turner sat down with Dr. Phil for a candid interview about her mental health, finding love, and her surprising dream career after “Game of Thrones.”
The 23-year-old explained on the “Phil in the Blanks” podcast that she is on an acting break at the moment.
“I actually am still on my break. I took a break off of work to focus on my mental health because I thought it was important,” she said.
Turner, who was cast as Sansa Stark in 2011, said online criticism took a toll on her self-worth.
“I think it was a combination of social media (being) on the rise at that time and also my friends were going to university, and I wasn’t going to university,” she explained. “I was working, but I was still living at my parents’ house, so I felt very alone.”
Sadly she believed the nasty comments she was reading, “It was just a lot of weight comments, or I would have spotty skin because I was a teenager — and that’s normal — and I used to get a lot of comments about my skin and my weight and how I wasn’t a good actress.”
She had no motivation to go out with friends, and would “cry and cry and cry over just getting changed and having to put on clothes.”
These days Turner avoids trolls, and is doing better thanks to therapy and her fiancé Joe Jonas.
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“I’m now with someone that makes me realize that I do have some redeeming qualities, I suppose,” she said. “When someone tells you they love you every day, it makes you really think about why that is, and I think it makes you love yourself a bit more.”
Turner also told Dr. Phil that she had thoughts about suicide in the past. “It’s weird. I say I wasn’t very depressed when I was younger, but I used to think about suicide a lot when I was younger. I don’t know why, though.”
“Maybe it’s just a weird fascination I used to have, but yeah, I used to think about it. I don’t think I ever would have gone through with it. I don’t know.”
Now, Sophie is considering a surprising career change. She has a “real urge” to become a police officer. “I want to do a lot of things, and not just in the film world. At the moment I have a real urge to go to a police academy and become a cop,” she said. “I’m fascinated with crime and why people do things and the interrogation process, and how you can manipulate your words in order to get someone to confess, that’s something that really interests me.”
The actress, who stars in the new X-Men movie “Dark Phoenix,” is also considering studying psychology. “I’m just really passionate about it,” she said. “I think as an actor as well, it really informs your acting. I’m just fascinated in the study of why people are the way they are… I want to know everything.”
“Extra” recently caught up with Sophie and her “Game of Thrones” co-star Maisie Williams. Watch!