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.
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: “W hen 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 .