Sophie Turner is taking good care of herself now that "Game of Thrones" has finished filming. In a sit-down with Dr. Phil, the actress got candid about her mental health.
"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 says on Dr. Phil's podcast, Phil in the Blanks. "So I'm still on that, and I'm just about to go into press for the final season of 'Game Of Thrones' and a movie 'Dark Phoenix' that I did, the latest 'X-Men' is about to come out in June, so I'm getting ready for a big press tour for that."
According to Sophie, 23, she's had depression for several years, with it hitting hard around age 17.
"It only started to go downhill, I think, when I started to hit puberty, and I was gaining weight, and then there was the social media scrutiny and everything," she explains.
When Dr. Phil asks if social media caused her depression, the actress acknowledges, "I think it definitely was a bit of a catalyst. You see ten great comments and you ignore them, but one negative comment and it just throws you off."
Continues Sophie, "The character that I play on my show is called Sansa, and people used to say, 'Damn, Sansa gained 10 pounds' or 'Damn, Sansa needs to lose 10 pounds' or 'Sansa got fat.' 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. I would just believe it. I would say, 'Yeah, I am spotty. I am fat. I am a bad actress.' I would just believe it. I would get [the costumers] to tighten my corset a lot. I just got very, very self-conscious."
The actress says falling for future husband Joe Jonas helped change her outlook.
"I [sometimes] don't think I love myself at all, but I'm now with someone that makes me realize I do have some redeeming qualities, I suppose," she says. "And when someone tells you they love you every day, it makes you really think about why that is, and I think that makes you love yourself a bit more. So yeah, I love myself."
Joe recently spoke to People magazine about what they need to have at their wedding.
"I mean, we are getting married in France, so a lot of Coors Light is necessary," he said. "Not hard, really, to get that, but we needed to make sure that was going to happen."
As for the future beyond the wedding, Sophie already has a second career in mind.
"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 explains. "I'm fascinated by 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 interests me."