Game of Thrones’ Lena Headey Opens Up About Battling Postpartum Depression While Filming
Lena Headey may be ready to once more thrill and horrify fans as the epically ruthless Cersei on the seventh season of Game of Thrones, but in real life, the 43-year-old actress struggles with the same issues that many of us face. That includes postpartum depression, which the star has just personally addressed, revealing that she battled PPD while filming the first season of the wildly popular HBO show.
“I was postnatally depressed but I didn’t know it,” the now-mother-of-two told Net-A-Porter’s digital magazine The EDIT of starring in the first season of the highly acclaimed show after welcoming her son, Wylie, into the world months earlier.
“I saw a doctor for the medical check, and I just burst into tears,” she continued. “[The doctor] said I was postnatally depressed and I went, ‘Am I? Why is that?’”
Thankfully for Headey, she was directed to the resources that would ultimately help her through her postpartum depression. “I saw a great guy and he sorted me out, but I did the first year [on Game of Thrones] in that space, figuring out motherhood and going through a weird time personally,” she recalled. “It was tricky.”
Headey, who also has a daughter, Teddy, previously opened up about her PPD in an interview with The Telegraph. “I had postnatal depression, which I didn’t realize for a long time,” she told the paper in 2014. “I went a bit nuts and eventually went to a guy who mixes Western and Eastern philosophy in terms of medicine and he put me on a course of something that changed everything.”
Did you know about Lena Headey’s battle with PPD? Let us know @BritandCo.
(h/t E!; photos via Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty, HBO)
