A 'Game of Thrones' actress has explained how she ended up being forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital
The actress Hannah Murray, known from the popular series “Game of Thrones”, spoke openly about how she was drawn into a “wellness” cult, an experience that led to her hospitalization after a mental breakdown, reports The Independent.
Murray, who played Gilly since the second season of the HBO series, retained the role until the final eighth season aired in 2019. In total, she appeared in 34 of the 73 episodes that “Game of Thrones” had, with Murray being included in the main cast since the show's 4th season.
She is also best known for playing troubled teenager Cassie Ainsworth in the TV series 'Skins'.
Now 36, Murray explained in a new interview with The Guardian that her problems began during the height of Game of Thrones' popularity.
During that time she was chosen to play in the film “Detroit”, a historical docudrama in which she was a colleague on the set of John Boyega, Anthony Mackie or Algee Smith.
Hannah Murray's problems began during the filming of a feature film
The film opened in theaters in 2017, with Murray recounting that the previous year she had been introduced to an “energy healer” named Grace while filming the feature. The actress claims that the woman took advantage of her vulnerability after feeling particularly exposed following a nudity scene.
Murray told The Guardian that in the months that followed he “ignored so many little things” that didn't make sense, including Grace's claims that she could activate his “spiritual DNA using powerful and ancient tools”.
The actress was later introduced to a person calling herself Sioban. He paid her £700 to teach her ways to “protect herself from other people's energy”. Then, she enrolled in various spiritual courses that promised to cure her of her emotional distress.
She reveals in “The Make-Believe,” a memoir to be published in early June, that she wanted to go “as far as possible” with these supposed spiritual teachings.
From the actress in “Game of Thrones” to the psychiatric hospital
She revealed that the person at the top of this course structure was a man named Steve, and that after a five-day session led by him, she became exhausted and unstable.
One night she suffered a mental breakdown in which she heard the man's voice in her mind and hallucinated diagrams on people's necks, which she believed were designed to “cure” them. She locked herself in a cubicle, and after someone called for help, she was rushed to hospital and admitted for 28 days under the UK's Mental Health Act.
Speaking about the book, Murray said it would tell “a deeply personal story that has lived with me for many years and which I now feel is vital to share”.
Publishers Hutchinson Heinemann, which has already put her memoir out for pre-orders, says it's about “the lure of those who tell us they can save us” and the deceptive structure of organizations that promise “wellness”.
“This is the story of the blurred line between what is real and what is illusion; between what we must accept and what we wish to be true; between the solid ground beneath your feet and a world where anything is possible if you give it your all,” the publisher said in a statement.
Murray has since retired from acting, with her last role coming in 2020 when she starred in “The Expecting,” a little-known horror series released that year.
