David Harewood: The Chilling Story Of How A Hollywood Star Lost His Mind

David Harewood is an award-winning actor, star of Supergirl and Homeland, and best-selling author behind Maybe I Don’t Belong Here, one of the best-reviewed and best-selling books of 2021. One of the best actors of his generation, with honours from Queen Elizabeth to prove it, David’s road to the top had to overcome his psychosis, which at one point drove him to the point of insanity and left him sectioned into a psychiatric hospital. With his life as he knew it on the brink, David rebuilt his life and career to reach the very top of the entertainment business. Scars like this take time to mend, and sometimes leave unexpected traces. David is controversially honest that losing his mind, in a way, helped him find his creativity. This isn’t the message that everyone wants to hear, but David’s frankness about how his darkest times set him apart from everyone else is a story you don’t want to miss. Follow David: Instagram: https://bit.ly/3CLLi9F Twitter: https://bit.ly/3MmT5xQ David's book: https://amzn.to/3RI13m4 Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I did everything that voice told me to do that night. Had that voice have told me to jump off Thames Bridge, I would have done it. Please welcome David Harewood.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Propelled to superstardom in hit US drama Homeland.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  One of our most influential voices on race and mental health.

• 0:16Steven Bartlett?

  I remember reading about a moment where you come home, you find your father's typewriter with one word written on the typewriter.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  It said illness. I didn't quite know what it was, but I knew something was off. I hadn't seen dad for a while. And then one morning I got up and my mom said, don't go into the kitchen. I'd go straight to school and I left the door. That night, that's when my mom told me that dad had been.

• 0:36Speaker 03

  David Harewood was the first black actor to play this part.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  The hostility that I was met with as a young black actor was ferocious. Newspapers, reviews, just dismissing me. He looks more like Mike Tyson than Romeo. What's he doing on the stage? So I really did feel like I was an anomaly. The whole thing, the stress, the smoke, the overthinking, just ended up making me spiral. That's what led to me just falling into psychosis. I was lying in bed and I just heard this voice in my head. He said he was Martin Luther King. Even though I'm speaking to you from beyond the grave, I need you to close the gap between good and evil. So you're going to sacrifice yourself tonight and you're going to be an angel. And that was the night I was eventually sectioned. I just remember lots of flashing lights and then being in the back of a police wagon.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  If that would have continued, I'm not even sure I would have been here today.

• 1:29Steven Bartlett?

  Without further ado, I'm Stephen Butler and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 1:45Steven Bartlett?

  David.

• 1:48Steven Bartlett?

  What do I have to understand about your very earliest years to understand the man you are, this perspective you have and the work you do today? What is the most important context?

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Wow, that's an interesting question. What do I need to, what do you need to know about me then?

• 2:08Speaker 00

  That I was probably naive, open, innocent, and probably more.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  Um, probably more conflicted than I thought I was. I was a vessel and into that vessel was just been poured so much. I say false information, wrong information, that um. At some point it had to smash, break. I grew up at a time when there weren't many black people on television and there weren't many black images that on television or anywhere. And I think, I think that is, I think that seriously.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  I'd say put me at a disadvantage, but I grew up with a false sense of myself and that, that false, false picture uh has only recently emerged. Does that make sense?

• 3:21Steven Bartlett?

  Not entirely, unless I get further context. What was the picture of yourself you grew up with?

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Uh, I would say, you know, I just think I was just way too naive and way too. Way too. That's hard, that's a, that's a really interesting question, I hadn't really thought about that. But I think it's only, it's only in recently, recent years and having asked myself some of the questions that I've been asking myself over these last couple of years and I've really started to get a real grip of the person that I am.

• 4:08Steven Bartlett?

  So who did you think you were when you, when you were younger? What did you think of the world and yourself when you were younger that was so naive and ill-informed?

• 4:17Speaker 00

  Um, I think I was.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  I didn't really think it was important. I didn't think my colour was important.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  And that's why I say I was naive. I didn't think my colour was that important. I had no concept of myself as a sort of young black man.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  And that's why I say I grew up at a time when there weren't any images of myself. So I couldn't really structure my identity around a sort of solid identity. And even my, you know, my mother was always sort of trying to steer me into a more Afrocentric mindset. You know, I go back to Birmingham where I'm from and I look at how many of us are in interracial relationships of that generation. We were constantly told to assimilate. It was all about assimilate, assimilate, assimilate. You're not, even my, you know, I heard the one, I heard the phrase one time, you're not black, you're normal. Which is so bizarre. It's so bizarre. So that your identity as a black person was sort of ironed

• 5:25Speaker 00

  out. You're just, you're British, you're English. And, and so when I came out of drama school, I think, and the world said to me, you're black.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  It was a real sort of wake-up call for me. And seriously contributed to what happened two years after I left.

• 5:54Steven Bartlett?

  Going back to your, your mother and your father, how was their relationship and your early experience with them shaped the man that you are today? Who were they as people?

• 6:04Speaker 00

  Wonderful people, you know, very, very, um, my mother was extremely strong. And, uh,

• 6:14Speaker 00

  my dad was a kind of a quiet, silent type, really. Uh, very proud. Um, you know, didn't really speak much, didn't really, um.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  Wasn't wasn't particularly involved in our education, wasn't particularly involved in shaping

• 6:37Speaker 00

  who we were, you know, he was very much hands off.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  You know, he was a long distance driver, so he was away a lot. And when he came back, he would sort of sit and watch the telly and in peace and just, you know. I have to try to talk to him when I was a kid, but he was a very difficult man to sort of open up. Whereas my mother was, my mother was always sort of talking and

• 7:06Speaker 00

  and sort of cajoling and very welcoming of her friends and she was just a really wonderful character and still is, very, very funny. But, you know, she tells me now of stories that she used to, you know, some of the fights that she had, some of the battles that she had. When I was running my book,

• 7:24Speaker 00

  you know, as I said, we were the only black family on that street and she was constantly in conflict with with neighbours, with racists.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  And she didn't back down. She was very, very sharp and fearless.

• 7:44Steven Bartlett?

  Sounds like my mother.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Hmm, fearless.

• 7:49Steven Bartlett?

  Your father, you write a lot about how hardworking he was.

• 7:55Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 7:55Steven Bartlett?

  The, the lack of affection you've described there, the lack of openness.

• 8:04Steven Bartlett?

  As you look back now, was there, is there, was that, was there a cost to that, to him and to the family, to you?

• 8:14Speaker 00

  I think so. I think so. I think, I think the fact that he didn't, that's difficult because it feels as like I'm criticizing him. And I don't really want to do that, but I, I think it was a loving home. There was a lot of laughter in the house, but that's, you know, he, he loved,

• 8:33Speaker 00

  you know, the, all the British sitcoms and of the time. One of my favorite sounds was the sound of him laughing. I loved hearing him laugh, hear my mum laugh. The house seemed full of laughter when I was growing up. So there was a lot of.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  You know, there was a lot of humour in the house, but there wasn't necessarily a lot of tenderness. And, you know, I I kiss my kids every morning when they go to school. It's just that why, but I I don't know why. It's important to me. Maybe it's just become habit, but I want them to know how much I love them and I want them to know. Um, uh, uh, how much respect I have for them and how much, how proud I am. It's important for me to do that. And and maybe it's because my dad didn't do that. Uh, not, not, not because, not because he, he, um, purposely didn't do it. I, I just don't think he, he thought it was that important, maybe. Do you think he knew how to do that?

• 9:35Speaker 00

  I don't know if he did. I don't know if he did. And, um.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Uh, but I think that's kind of true of a lot of men of that generation.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  Uh, showing emotion wasn't very easy for them. And also, I think. It's really interesting. A friend of mine tells me this story of, of.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  It, it's, it's very particular to the sixties and seventies, which is why I'm, you know, I'm as a director and, and. I'm very, I'm fascinated by this period of late fifties, sixties, seventies, England. Because I don't think people understand the level of racism that was present in this country. I just got goosebumps then because. They don't understand it. And the idea of being othered, that you would leave your house and literally take your life into your hands. I mean, I remember randomly getting off a bus and instantly being chased by a group of skinheads. And you would just automatically find yourself running.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Now, to, to be, to, to have come here from the Caribbean with ideas of streets are paved with gold, England being the mother country. To, to have come here with that idea and to be met with that amount of hostility. To be met with, with that amount of abuse, that amount of rejection. I think it's seriously damaged.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Not just my father, but many people who came here in that generation, that Windrush generation, because it's fascinating to me how many Caribbean parents do not want to talk about that period, just do not want to go there, because I think it was horrific. And I think it damaged him. I haven't really thought about that before. Well, I, you know, really considered it before, but I, I do think that that was a tough period for a, a lot of, a lot of us. And whereas in America, you know, movies had been made, plays had been written about that generation, about that period, we've not really looked at it.

• 12:00Steven Bartlett?

  I have to be completely honest. I, you know, I grew up in ninety, I was born in nineteen ninety-two, came to the UK when I was two years old from Botswana. Um, I, I always saw my mum have this, I'll describe it as this like combative, uh, I'd say it's slightly combative attitude towards people and this like general belief that other people were racist. And I never understood it. I never understood, I never fully understood it. I just thought she, she viewed the, the world as being racist. And as I've done this podcast and specifically spoken to people from the fifty's, sixty's, seventy's, eighty's, and, and early nineties, my mind has been blown because I don't get, I didn't get it.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Of course, you know, and it's interesting because I listened to the wonderful Chris

• 12:47Steven Bartlett?

  Kamara. Yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  And the world that he was talking about, I know that. I, I, I, I remember it. You know, growing up in those, in, in, I was born just after Chris, five years after Chris, but those, which is why he's such a legend for me. Why him, Sil Regis, they are legends because as kids, I watched them playing football, knowing full well that fifty percent of that, the crowd, were giving him so much abuse regularly. And yet he was able to play football, smile, score goals, play aggressively. I was in awe of those guys because I just thought.

• 13:32Speaker 00

  I would be scared. As a kid, I was scared. And that's one of the things I've touched upon in my book, is is owning up to that idea that I was terrified growing up in those days, because you just never knew where a brick would come from, where where where, you know, your car would, a car would suddenly be walking down the street, whistling yourself, having a great day. Next thing you know, nigga, from a car, boom, from a car, monkey, just monkey noises would just come from nowhere. And you were just tight and tense up. So I grew up in that environment. And so I I'm I'm well aware of it, which is probably goes back to

• 14:16Speaker 00

  that, your first question about what do I want, what you need to know about me. That's the environment I grew up in. So I, it was trying to form a sense of myself. It's constantly been sort of, it's, growing up at a period where you're othered, where you're in fear, and not understanding who you are, was destabilizing, I think. And I'm, in a sense, lucky that my house fell down when it did. And I was able to put it back together again.

• 14:58Steven Bartlett?

  Where a brick would have come from. You talk about a story being, I think, five years old, where a brick comes through the window of your family home.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 15:08Steven Bartlett?

  Tell me about that.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  Regular. Well, I write about it in the book and how, how, you know, Saturday mornings was always cartoon morning, you know, Saturday morning cartoons back in the day. Again, you're too young to that. But it was always, you know, Tom and Jerry and Peppi La Pue and.

• 15:27Steven Bartlett?

  I loved Tom and Jerry.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  It was great. It was just, they were just on constantly. So you would sort of, you know, you'd sort of run down and and watch telly. And my my mom's, my mom was famous for her breakfasts, English breakfast, bacon, eggs, toast, chips, all the English, which we used to love. And I remember my mom calling us down. For breakfast and running down the stairs and then hearing this smash. And we ran into the lounge. And there was an English breakfast. Covered in glass. Because a brick had come through the window and just.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  There was glass all over our kitchen table. And we just all sort of stood there in shock. And mum said, go back to bed.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Traked us back up the road, back up to, back up to bed.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  But that was a sort of, you don't know where it came from. Didn't know where it came from, but we were targets.

• 16:29Steven Bartlett?

  Your mum's reaction there when I read about this. Seemed uncomfortably calm.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Well, what are you gonna do, you know, and she wasn't always calm and there was times when she. She did, you know, grab people by the collars and have people up, have people up the wall. She was fearless. And, uh, you know, don't you ever call my son, that's like get that name again. And she was, you know, she was. Fearless, but at the same time.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  You're powerless in that, in that.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  Setting. Because you don't know who threw that brick. And, um, you're almost, you know, I think back to it now and think.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  You know, she, she used to sort of walk me to school. And be waiting at the school gate to walk me home. And for me, that was, it was great to see my mum's face at, at, at the, at the end of school.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  But I realised later, maybe why she did that, because when you did go home on your own, years later. It was a bit of a. Minefield. You had to be careful.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  You were a target.

• 17:45Steven Bartlett?

  People don't understand that, especially people, especially people that haven't experienced racist abuse. The idea of leaving the school gates and the journey home being anxious and looking over your shoulder.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Anxious, that's a good word, which, you know, I didn't realise at the time, but I think was a huge amount of anxiety. And then the thing, the amazing thing about it is you might go a week without it. You might go two weeks without it. You might go three weeks without it and then you relax.

• 18:15Steven Bartlett?

  Oh shit.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  And then you're normal and then bang, a casual Wednesday afternoon, middle of the day, nigga. And suddenly you're right back to being scared.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  And I, I don't really think my, you know, I, I, I, I think my whole sense of self. Because you do your best to sort of, you do your best to normalise that stuff and think, I'm not going to let it affect me. I've always had this, my mother's words ringing in my head, don't let it affect you. Hold your head up, be strong.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  So you keep thinking, no, no, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna let this affect me.

• 19:02Steven Bartlett?

  Is that good advice?

• 19:06Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I think, yes, yes, but um.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  It doesn't always work. It doesn't always work and it, you know, it crystallised for me when, rather foolishly. I went, I was a Leeds, I was, I don't know why, I was a Leeds United fan and, and um. Always used to watch, watching Leeds United, they were the champions back then. And they came to Birmingham one year to, to, to, to play Birmingham City. And like a jackass, I thought, I'm gonna go and sit in the Leeds end. And back in the day, back in the day, you could, at half time, you could literally walk into the ground.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  So I thought, you know, I think I was about twelve, maybe about nine, ten or something like that. And I, at half time, I thought, I'm gonna go and sit with the Leeds fans. The idea of it now, but I walked into the Leeds and at first it was just a couple of monkey noises. And then it became like a chorus of monkey noises. And then it became a chorus of goo nigger. And then it seemed like thousands of people were screaming abuse at me. And I heard these words in my, my mother's words, hold your head up, don't be scared. So I thought, I'm gonna go and take my seat.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  And I kept walking down the touchline, but it got so loud. Then in the end, I thought, I don't wanna sit with these people.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  So I turned around and walked away and they cheer, I remember them cheering. But I saw, I remember I was really shaken and I remember, I remember to this day, this groundsman or ward, you know, the staff, member of staff, as I walked out on the ground, he shout, you're, you're all right, kid. And I just went, I was nodded and just walked home. But I was really shaken by it. Because I'd done exactly what my mother told me to. But it didn't work.

• 21:15Steven Bartlett?

  In, in your early teens, after that, your father's mental health began to deteriorate.

• 21:22Steven Bartlett?

  What were the, were there any events that led up to that? I, I remember reading about a moment where you come home, the lights are on and there's, you find your father's typewriter with one word written on the typewriter.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, it said illness.

• 21:38Speaker 00

  My dad was a prolific

• 21:42Speaker 00

  sort of organizer.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  And

• 21:49Speaker 00

  he started this, this darts league and

• 21:54Speaker 00

  was always on the typewriter, writing out the results and writing out that who's played who and who had won and who was going through to next round and who needed the trophy and who was gonna, where they were gonna play and what times they played. And he just, he loved the darts.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  But he just took too much on.

• 22:12Speaker 00

  And

• 22:14Speaker 00

  he, he was constantly sort of working at this, organizing this whole thing and

• 22:21Speaker 00

  organizing the trophies at the end of the season, organizing the meeting, organizing that he was just always, and I think he was just doing it all on his own.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  And

• 22:33Speaker 00

  I I I just think he just took on too much. And um.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  I didn't I didn't necessarily, I didn't necessarily see it coming because I was quite young. But um.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  It happened very, very quickly.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  And.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  I always used to hear my dad go to work in the mornings, which is hear his keys jingle jangle down the stairs. That was sort of my. Alarm to get up for school is my dad, hearing my dad come down the stairs and think, right, I've got to get up in a minute. And for a couple of days I didn't hear it. And I kept hearing arguments in my, in the, in my mum and dad's bedroom.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  And I thought this is, something's not right. I haven't seen dad for a while. I haven't heard the jingle jangle down the stairs. Something's off. I didn't quite know what it was, but I knew something was off. And then one morning I got up and my mum said.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  Don't go into the kitchen.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  Get changed up in the bedroom and go straight to school out the front door. And um, I did. And then that night, that was when my mum told me that dad had been sectioned. So it it had happened, it happened really quickly and they'd sort of kept me away from it. But unbeknownst to me, my brothers were holding my dad down in the kitchen. Because he would, he he'd sort of lost it.

• 24:04Steven Bartlett?

  How did they explain being sectioned to you when you're in your early teens? Because I, you know.

• 24:10Steven Bartlett?

  I would have no idea what that meant in my early teens.

• 24:14Speaker 00

  They didn't really, and it's, it was just, you know, dad's not well. Father's not well, he's been taken to hospital. And, you know, there's always that gig, there's always that, there's always that sort of.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  That gag at school that, you know, the men in the white coats will take you away, you know, you're crazy, that's, you know, you're crazy or you're going to be, you're going to be taken away. And that's what happened. My dad was taken away. Um, I didn't see it, but I I knew he was.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  I knew that he'd been, I know now, obviously, and having over recent years, I know that that's what had happened to him. He'd been sectioned. And when I was sectioned.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  I I suddenly realised that I suddenly realised, especially when I was writing the book, I thought that's what had happened to him and and that now it's only once I'd written my book and really understood what that was like, having your liberty taken away from you. Because I think that in prison is about the only, being locked in prison, is about the only times when your liberty is taken away from you.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  And it was only then that I started asking myself, sort of started looking at my dad's life in sort of retrospect and thinking, because he hated it, my dad hated it, and was never the same again when he, when he was released, he was never the same again. And I don't think, I I think he had a really bad time in there, a really, really difficult and bad time, which I don't think he ever forgave my mother for.

• 26:00Steven Bartlett?

  Understanding what you understand now about the nature of mental health and what causes it, and your own experiences with mental health.

• 26:08Steven Bartlett?

  When you look at why, how your father became to be sectioned, have you got any suspicions about why that happened beyond that he took on too much at the darts?

• 26:21Speaker 00

  I do think that there was a lot of resentment and anger built up in him. And you've got to wonder why, and this is, I only found this out, again, once I started writing my book and started looking at mental health, and the numbers of black, black people are overrepresented in the mental health system in this country. And what I realised is that, it was a Jamaican psychologist who, who actually performed this study and he realised that black people.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  There's way less mental health in Africa amongst black, black community. There is mental health problems, but way less psychosis and.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  But there's more in when they are transmitted to a western culture. So uh there's more mental health, episodes of mental health in England amongst the black community and in America amongst the black community. And I think there's something about, I call it in my, and this is one of the things that my therapist talks about, when you're in a white space.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  And that's not a derogatory term, but.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  England is essentially a white space. And I'm sure you've been in rooms where you're the only person of colour. The higher up the ladder, you're, what they call it, tall poppy syndrome, where the higher up the ladder you get, the less of your own people you see. And I think, you know, my thing, I think, I think my dad had found it very difficult coming from the Caribbean and coming to England.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  And dealing with a completely different mindset. I think he'd found that difficult. And um resentment had built up. And I, I think I was gonna say a point earlier on that illustrates this, but a friend of mine used to told me that his dad used to work on an assembly line. And in the days of, in the seventies, when Jim Davidson was doing his chalky routine.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  That, and he was the only black person on the assembly line. Every Monday morning, after New Faces or whatever it was that Jim was on, the comedians or whatever it was, doing his chalky thing, every Monday morning, he would be chalky.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  And his dad would laugh and take it and, and then, you know, throughout the week, they'd be calling him chalky and he'd be developing the name chalky, chalky, chalky, chalky, he's chalky. His dad would laugh. And then on Friday night, his dad would get drunk and beat the fuck out of him and his mother. And I think that was just a buildup of resentment.

• 29:16Speaker 00

  Of having to live in this place where,

• 29:21Speaker 00

  yeah, everyone's calling me this name. Everyone thinks it's funny. And I'm laughing, but there's a buildup of resentment that he then takes out on his family. Now, I'm not saying my, I'm not saying my dad

• 29:37Speaker 00

  had that level of resentment, but I think

• 29:42Speaker 00

  there was just something about being here that he started to find difficult to live with, cope with mentally.

• 29:51Steven Bartlett?

  When I read through your book and also a lot of the stories you've told me today. I mean, I remember one particular story where you got a, you got a girlfriend in school and then you come into school the next day. Her father has said that she can't be with you because you're black. This constant, constant rejection, social rejection. You used that word earlier on, the word rejection, and it feels so apt because that's really what's, I think, in a, on a psychological, psychological level, going on, even going to the football and then being rejected socially from that crowd. And it's constant throughout your story. You know, I, I've read these studies about labeling theory where when the world tells, when you tell somebody they are something in these studies, they, they eventually become it. So you, you know, there's the famous prison study where they said, you're the guards, you're the prisoners. They had to stop the study because the guards were so harsh on the prisoners.

• 30:35Steven Bartlett?

  And labeling theory says exactly that. Your teacher says you're a D and you're going to be a failure. The chances are that'll actually lower your performance, your, your self-belief. How do you stop that happening when society has rejected you for years and years and years growing up at the most formative time?

• 30:49Speaker 00

  I think, you know, I think I was lucky because I, I do think that

• 30:55Speaker 00

  I lived amongst a lot of people who,

• 31:00Speaker 00

  you know, who didn't define you that way. So I think that was, I was very, very lucky for that. But I, I think

• 31:12Speaker 00

  I think that person had to, I think that house had to come down. Which is what I think my breakdown was all about. The more I learn about it,

• 31:21Speaker 00

  the more I realize that that image of that young boy.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  I had to start again, I had to rebuild my image of self.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  And um, that's when I've sort of, it's interesting because I, even though it happened thirty years ago, I'm only now just dealing with it. Because I only found the records, only did that documentary, I only, all this is recent. And I think if I'd have talked to you last year, I'd probably be in tears by now because so much of this is recent for me and having to deal with a lot of it. I just, I've spent the last thirty years in this sort of cocoon, not really dealing with a lot of this stuff. And it's only since reading my medical records and doing that documentary and uncovering all that trauma. As I say, the first thing I read when I opened my medical records from thirty years ago,

• 32:19Speaker 00

  which were the medical records that the BBC found in the bowels of the Whittington Psychiatric Hospital. I had no idea they were going to give them to me, no idea, I had no idea they'd even found them. The first thing I read was, patient believes he has merged hearts with a young black boy.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  And I just thought, what is that?

• 32:41Speaker 00

  What is, and I just looked through the medical records and it's all to do with my race and my identity, all of it. I was just confused, I'd sort of lost touch with my identity, going off to drama school and playing Romeo and Pushkin and doing all these, doing Molière and Dostoevsky, doing all these European romantic, you know, playwrights and Shakespeare and all these different characters and thinking, my character, my colour doesn't matter, I can do all these wonderful things. And then I came out of drama school and every newspaper article was all about my colour. Every job I went through was all about my colour. I could go for these jobs and not these jobs.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  And I, it just,

• 33:30Speaker 00

  it was like I, it, it, it was like I hadn't.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  It was almost like I hadn't dealt with it. Dealt with my core identity as a young black man. And it all started to just, I started to overthink it.

• 33:53Steven Bartlett?

  What was your core identity that you hadn't dealt with as a black man?

• 33:58Speaker 00

  I think just understanding myself, what your first question was, understanding myself in the world and knowing, having confidence in myself. There's too many questions about my identity. I think one of the things I did when I sought a therapist after my documentary was I sought out, I've had therapy many times in my life. But I sought out a black therapist, a black male therapist. And that has been really strikingly revealing to me. Because some of the questions I had, he would kind of say, well, why do you think like that?

• 34:42Speaker 00

  And he would question why I think like that. And I found it remarkable how he was able to make me understand that a lot of the things that I'm most, a lot of my fears, a lot of my insecurities are only natural. Maybe potentially because I have been growing up predominantly in a white environment. And maybe I didn't. Maybe I wasn't comfortable with myself. I'm much more comfortable with myself now.

• 35:23Steven Bartlett?

  What were those fears and insecurities?

• 35:27Speaker 00

  You're going to ask that. You know, there's that image of the strong black man. You know, great at dancing, great at sex, great at chatting women up, great at this, great at that. And.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  I felt maybe that I didn't always live up to that. And if you have that idea that you can only be one way as a black man, the world is telling you that you could only be this way.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Then you sort of don't feel like you measure up. And actually, I've learned, yeah, you can be vulnerable. That's okay. You can be sensitive. That's okay. You, um, it's okay to be not be, you know,

• 36:25Speaker 00

  darkest McFly, you know, who just beats down all the girls, dances fantastically, does, you know, he's the alpha black.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  It's okay not to be the alpha black guy.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  It's okay. And, uh, that's taken me a while to sort of understand about myself.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  I think Jay Z, it's interesting. I think there's that thing about Jay Z talks about the gold, silver, bronze, the gold, I think it's a, it's a book called How to be Black. It's a very, very funny book. But he talks about the gold, silver, bronze, um, black man. You know, the gold, born in the ghetto, black wife, black friends, you know. Silver, born in the ghetto, black wife, went to university. Bronze, born in the ghetto, white wife. You know, and you sort of, you sort of get less and less, you're almost like you get less and less black.

• 37:21Steven Bartlett?

  Be copper or something.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and, and then you see, but then you see the effects of that in schools where you go, where you have teachers will tell me that, you know, you'd get a really intelligent black kid, but just to fit in with his peer groups, he won't work as hard because he fears the, the more intelligent he is, the less black he is. The brighter he is, the less black he's seen, the more, and I hate that.

• 37:42Steven Bartlett?

  Isn't that funny being rejected by the white community, but also the black community?

• 37:46Speaker 00

  Well, that's exactly what I had. So, so, you know, when I came out of Rada, so I had, I had tough, I had this sort of, when I started being an actor, you know, blackening to like, you're going to be a what? That's too white. You, you, you're too white, man. And then I went to Rada and kind of did all this Shakespeare, all these plays. And then I came out speaking like this and everybody went, you're way too white. And so you're getting rejected by the press and critics because you're black. And then you're also being rejected by the black community because they you don't look or you don't sound like, you know, man from the ends. You don't sound like you don't talk like that. So I really did feel like I was an anomaly.

• 38:31Steven Bartlett?

  At age twenty three, I think it's age twenty three, you that's around the time you were sectioned.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:39Steven Bartlett?

  This is a very strange way of asking the question, but in hindsight, knowing now what you know about why you were sectioned, what was going on in your life, your mind, your environment, the press, professionally, personally.

• 38:53Steven Bartlett?

  What would you have had to change, avoid, do differently before then to have avoided that happening?

• 39:08Speaker 00

  That's a million dollar question. This really is a million dollar question, and I'm not sure there was any

• 39:16Speaker 00

  anything I could have done. I think that I think it had to come down. So I'm I'm a great believer that

• 39:30Speaker 00

  in trauma, there's a lesson that there was something in that for me of value. I don't think any I don't think, I mean, I was very lucky that I came out of it. But I do believe, and as I have got older in my life, and having written the book and having had so many people tell me since writing that book, as so many people say, thank you. I'm not crazy. Thank you. You really you've really articulated everything that goes on in my some of the frustrations that come. So I've only given voice to a thing to things that a lot of people experience. Just I took it to an extreme, I think.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  And I think it's probably as an artist, as an actor has benefited some of my work. It's enabled me to take things perhaps a step further than maybe what some people can take things. I think it's given me a perspective.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  I think there's something I think there was something of value for in it for me. I don't.

• 40:37Speaker 00

  I think it had to happen. I don't think I could have done anything to have stopped it. Which is

• 40:44Speaker 00

  both scary and worrying.

• 40:51Steven Bartlett?

  What do you remember about that time? Because it seems to be quite a blur when you recount the events. You it's almost like you have these abstract memories of just different moments.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  It's interesting, but I do believe I started this process thinking that it was going to be fun.

• 41:08Speaker 00

  Because it's like manic, you know, manic depression. It is often psychosis. Like it's often preceded with a mania, a heightened adrenaline rush, dopamine, the dopamine levels in your brain are heightened. And it's quite exciting because you're not getting sleep. It's often drug induced and you are really sort of operating at this quite high level.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  And I I remember doing some pretty extraordinary things. I remember brief moments of real sort of mental acuity and

• 41:50Speaker 00

  dare I say it, there was almost moments of fun.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  But it's usually preceded by a crash. So I sort of went into this thinking, I'm going to, I'm going to remember all the fun things I did.

• 42:06Speaker 00

  Some of the extraordinary things I did, and there were some really

• 42:10Speaker 00

  wild things. I was experimenting with a sense of reality, what was real and what wasn't real. Thinking I could do anything and it was

• 42:23Speaker 00

  bizarrely exciting.

• 42:27Steven Bartlett?

  Give me an example of something that you recount that is.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  Well, it's interesting because my one of the consultants that was in the documentary tells me that

• 42:40Speaker 00

  because I told she asked me for an example and I

• 42:44Speaker 00

  I said I was walking, walking down the street one, one morning. I hadn't slept all night. And there was a guy across the road and he had this huge doberman. Huge kind of massive muscular and I'm normally quite afraid of dogs.

• 43:05Speaker 00

  And I just walked up to this, I walked up to this guy, I said, what's that dog's name? Any Jeb or something. And I looked at this dog and I screamed the dog's name and I looked at this dog quite aggressively and right in its face. And the dog just literally, literally lay on the floor and started whelping.

• 43:24Speaker 00

  Whelping on its back, just freaked out. And the consultant said to me that often dogs can pick up um

• 43:35Speaker 00

  some, some uh energies.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  Disturbed energies. And I'd obviously really, this guy was really freaked out. He said, what do we, the dog was literally whelping and moaning on the floor. And I just fixed this dog with no fear and screamed its name right in its face. Just freaked the dog out.

• 43:58Steven Bartlett?

  That night you were sectioned. I read, I read that you were, you hailed a taxi and it was ultimately the exchange with the taxi driver.

• 44:04Speaker 00

  I mean, this was an extraordinary, I mean, that was an extraordinary. And again,

• 44:10Speaker 00

  it was the voice of Martin Luther King that was in my head.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  You hear voices in, when you, when you, uh, uh, one of the aspects of psychosis, which is what I suffered from. You can hear voices, have illusions, allusions, delusions that seem incredibly real to you.

• 44:34Speaker 00

  And um, I was lying in bed. And I just heard this voice in my head. Wake up. And I just come over, sat up in bed, looking around the room, thinking, where's that come from? And this voice was in my head. Sounds totally bizarre, but this voice was in my head. And he went on to say, look, I don't want to tell you who I am right now because you're going to be really scared. But you have to go to Camden. You have to walk into this store. Don't be surprised if it's open. It's three o'clock in the morning. Don't be surprised it's open. Whatever you do, do not turn around. And it was all these things I had to do.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Whatever you do, don't do this, whatever you do, don't do that. But then go to, go into this store, walk to the back of the store, there's gonna be one suit hanging up on a rack in, at the back of the store. You need to put this suit on and then when you turn around, don't be surprised to find out that it's two o'clock in the afternoon. He said, I'm gonna, I'm going to close the space time continuum and we are going to close the gap between good and evil, this whole thing. And it was, he said, it ended up being Martin Luther King, he said he was Martin Luther King. And he said, when you, when you.

• 45:48Speaker 00

  Cause I played Martin Luther King as a kid and it was my first, the first acting thing that I'd ever done. And he said, when you played me as a, as a child, I entered your heart. And when I was, he said, even though I'm speaking to you from beyond the grave, I need you and two or three other people in, in the world to activate something and close the, the, the, the gap between good and evil. And he said, so you're gonna sacrifice yourself tonight and you're gonna be an angel. And this voice was, I swear to you, was like, really in my head. And I'm sobbing in my bedroom, listening to this voice.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  He said, so tonight's the night, and that was the night I was eventually sectioned. But I got up, got my clothes on and walked all the way to Camden.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  Obviously the shop was closed.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  It's eight o'clock in the morning, you know, I'm out of my nuts, so, um. And I was exhausted and I thought, I've gotta go home and flagged a cab down.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  And I didn't have any money. And, uh, I don't remember, I just, I just remember this driver looking around and then the driver pulling over and then, um, lots of flashing lights, obviously the police. And then being in the back of a police wagon. And then, sitting in a cell. And all this was just, I'm in and out of

• 47:27Speaker 00

  what seemed like a dream for me. I didn't, I, I, I was in and out of, I remember being in this cell and then going to magistrate's court in the morning. And not remembering my name, didn't remember my name at all, didn't know who I was. Couldn't remember who I was.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  And um.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  The uh duty solicitor sort of talking about my mom and then said my dad's name is Romeo and I went Romeo. Hang on a minute, I played Romeo, played Romeo, played Romeo, played Romeo, David, David Heywood. I think so, that's, I used my, I used my sort of career to get back to who I was.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  Then left, went to court.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  And I had no idea what was happening in this court. I mean, I was, the judge was speaking at me and I was just a mess. And I walked out of court and again. Lucky, but some woman who'd been in the court.

• 48:34Speaker 00

  Uh walked out and said.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Said to me, are you okay? And I said, I don't think so. I don't know, I don't know who I am. And she gets, she said, where do you live? And I said, I can't remember. She said, what's your nearest tube station?

• 48:48Speaker 00

  And I said, you know, hybrid Islington. And she flagged the cab down, gave the driver ten pounds and said, take him to hybrid Islington. And I got out of hybrid Islington, walked home and my friends were waiting for me. Cause they'd been looking for me all night, couldn't find me. And that's the, that's the day that they. Knew something was, even though they'd been sitting with me and visiting me for the last couple of weeks, because they knew something was off.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  They knew I wasn't well. And that's the weird thing about. Mental health or particularly psychosis, you see somebody. Acting very strangely, something that you love, it could be your son, your husband, your mom, your, they just suddenly start acting out of character. Becoming obsessed with something or. It's like they suddenly change and. You don't, you know, something's wrong.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  But you sort of hope desperately hoping that they sort of come back.

• 49:49Speaker 00

  And that's sometimes, you know, they don't, and you have to make that call to have them sectioned. And luckily for me.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  My friends would have been there because if they weren't there, I think I would have been in real trouble.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  I would have been in real trouble. If that would have continued, I'm not even sure I would have been here today.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  So I was very lucky.

• 50:16Steven Bartlett?

  How long did that process last before you were sectioned of the sort of gradual deterioration?

• 50:21Speaker 00

  I think it was happening for a while because I remember working and not feeling great. So I'd say at least two or three months, there was a slow progression of

• 50:37Speaker 00

  not sleeping, overthinking,

• 50:41Speaker 00

  trying to hide that, drinking to sort of self-medicate. I knew I wasn't well, but I thought I could handle it.

• 50:53Steven Bartlett?

  I'm trying to understand how much of that you believe is a physiological, biological situation or maybe predisposed by biology versus circumstance, experience and the things that you'd been through.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  I think, and again, when I'm reading, you know, speaking to my consultant who

• 51:17Speaker 00

  was working on my documentary, it's a combination of both things.

• 51:23Speaker 00

  Your propensity, your your

• 51:29Speaker 00

  the chances of you having a breakdown are sort of reliant on levels of stress, lack of sleep, what's called ACEs, which are these fundamental, like people who experience trauma in life. I mean, for me, I think it was

• 51:52Speaker 00

  my parents' divorce and not dealing with that.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Not dealing with that at the time. So much of it has just been squashed, not dealing with some of the trauma that was in my life. And I think a lot of it was coming out

• 52:08Speaker 00

  slowly coming out then in that one slow progression of being deeply unhappy.

• 52:15Steven Bartlett?

  Why? Why were you deeply unhappy? I read that and I thought, what?

• 52:19Speaker 00

  I, as I say, I came out of drama school.

• 52:24Speaker 00

  And the hostility.

• 52:26Steven Bartlett?

  Um.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  That I was met with as a young black actor was ferocious.

• 52:33Steven Bartlett?

  Newspapers.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  Newspapers, reviews, just dismissing me, completely dismissing me. And I'd sort of left drama school with a bit of heat. People were like, oh, really excited to see what I was gonna do. And the school was very, very excited to, you know. Everybody was talking about this young, young kid coming out of drama school, he's gonna be, you know. And I just got slaughtered, slaughtered.

• 52:56Steven Bartlett?

  All about race.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  All about race. I played Sloan in Entertaining Mr. Sloan.

• 53:01Steven Bartlett?

  Mr. Sloan, yeah.

• 53:02Speaker 00

  Who is quite a devious bisexual character. Murder, he's actually also a murderer. And um, there was one reviewer, a black reviewer who said, who was outraged that I'd taken the part. Because I was letting the side down.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  And he said that people should go and demonstrate their disapproval of Mr. Harewood's choice of employment.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  And I read it, I was like, wow. Put that down. And I noticed that night, people, as Sloan has this really kind of tough monologue.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  We talked about abusing somebody. And in the middle of this monologue, I saw people get up and walk out.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  And I noticed that they were black. And then the next night, more black people started walking out. And it was always in the middle of that monologue, black people would get up and walk out.

• 54:05Speaker 00

  And it was really tough to deal with.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  It was really tough to try and, and they were sort of chop seeing and. As, as they walked out. And sort of, it was really disturbing me. Because I had to get on with the play.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  And that was only the second act, there was another three. So the whole way through that play, I was sort of coping with, why did they walk out?

• 54:32Steven Bartlett?

  Get on with the play seems to be quite an apt metaphor for that period of your life.

• 54:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I wasn't really dealing with it. So dealing with the fundamentals. So I think that's when the drinking started. To to be able to get through the play, I started drinking. To be able to, I started self medicating. So I was drinking a lot before, during, after the show, smoking after the show. And the whole thing, the stress, the smoke, the overthinking.

• 55:02Steven Bartlett?

  Lack of sleep.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  Lack of sleep just ended up making me spiral.

• 55:08Steven Bartlett?

  How long from being sectioned to getting back to acting? How long was that sort of recovery process per se?

• 55:15Speaker 00

  It was a lot quicker than I realized, actually, which I, which surprised me. I thought it was going to be months, but it was, I was sectioned for about five days initially, and then again in Birmingham

• 55:27Speaker 00

  for another five days. And then the recovery was just about

• 55:36Speaker 00

  convincing my mother that I was okay, because she was, she was convinced that it was acting. It was acting that sent me crazy. And then I was never going to act again. And then I was never going to go back to London again. I was never going to be allowed to act again.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  Uh, so she kind of watched me like a hawk for about a month.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  Maybe a month, six weeks. And eventually

• 56:01Speaker 00

  uh, she, she allowed me to travel back down to London and get on with my career.

• 56:09Steven Bartlett?

  I sat here with Maisie Williams, the young Game of Thrones actress. And she talked to me about how act, acting was a form of escapism in her life because her home had such little joy that acting became this place, almost this therapeutic place where she could, I guess, in some respects, abandon that identity. And I remember reading from this like Swedish philosopher, which I wrote about in my book, Once Upon a Time, who said that when we, if we try and abandon ourselves, we'll ultimately just, bear in mind, he wrote this 200 years ago. So he was just, you know. If we try to.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:40Steven Bartlett?

  If it's still true, that's why, yeah, that's why it really stayed with me. If we try and abandon ourselves and we're successful, we'll despair at the fact that we've abandoned ourselves and our identity. If we try and abandon ourselves and we're unsuccessful, we'll despair at being unsuccessful in our, in our attempts to become other than we are. And he concludes in his like big philosopher, philosopher piece, that the only true way to be happy is to accept that which you, who you are and to not abandon yourself. He, you know, that's his conclusion after this long study that he's done on people. It, that kind of felt almost quite true when I think about what acting is in many respects. For, for Maisie, it was this, this attempt to abandon the self and actually to not confront the issues.

• 57:20Steven Bartlett?

  And then she ultimately had to at some point confront those issues and what had gone on in her family home, what her father had done to her. But acting was her escape at 12 or 13. Is, is any of that reminiscent to, or does any of that ring true specifically this idea of like the role acting played in identity for you?

• 57:41Speaker 00

  Acting is the only space I feel 100% confident in.

• 57:47Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 57:50Speaker 00

  Because everyone knows their lines. Everyone knows where they're going to go. Everyone knows the movement. Everyone knows the play. On stage, I just feel, that's probably my, that's where I'm at my happiest.

• 58:02Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 58:03Speaker 00

  It's, I can't explain it. I just become, it's, you become somebody else. You know, when you're, when you're, that's the true nature of, I think, of art is like somebody who paints, I think. You know, they, they want to create something and they're free to create. Van Gogh could be tortured, it could be tortured, but he can still produce an amazing piece of art.

• 58:25Steven Bartlett?

  You said there though, that I'm happy when I'm acting because I've become someone else. So what does that say about oneself?

• 58:31Speaker 00

  If I'm myself, I'm full of, there's insecurities, there's doubts, there's, there's decisions to make, there's doubt. Which is what, which is why life, I think, is so unique. I don't know what you're gonna say next. None of us know. That's what's so beautiful about it and so fantastic about it. But on stage, it's a controlled environment. So for those two hours, I can be King Lear, I can be Othello, and I completely put myself into that. And it's that's, I feel, it's like, I'm a, I guess you would, I guess you could say, footballers say that, you know, on the pitch, no problems. George Best, on the pitch, a genius. Off it,

• 59:14Speaker 00

  an alcoholic, somebody who can't, somebody who can't cope. Maradona, on the pitch, a genius. Off the pitch, something else. You can't cope with life. Life is uncontrollable. Life is full of contradictions, full of

• 59:34Speaker 00

  difference, full of failures and success. It's just, it's, it's,

• 59:42Speaker 00

  it's

• 59:45Speaker 00

  very difficult to distill. Whereas on stage,

• 59:50Speaker 00

  I know, you know, I can play that. And I can put myself into that and pour myself into that character. And I feel great. It's the most freeing place for me. It's the most freeing thing I could, can, I've ever experienced. And that's why I love it so much.

• 1:00:10Steven Bartlett?

  That's what Maisie said. She said it was, for her, she said, actually, it was the only place she experienced joy.

• 1:00:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, I could not completely, completely understand that.

• 1:00:20Steven Bartlett?

  But what that, not to be repetitive, but what is that saying about the nature of our, our life in terms of why can't life be joyous as equally joyous? What would we have to do to make our, our acting life when we're king?

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  Well, that's the secret, I guess. And that's, that's the secret of sort of finding a place where you can be, and I'm sort of on the way, you know, where you can experience joy. And I think that's, that's a It's a lifelong struggle, but you have to work at it.

• 1:00:50Steven Bartlett?

  Two thousand and nineteen was the the first time, two thousand seventeen, two thousand nineteen was the first time you really opened up about your experiences in terms of.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  To the press, I'd always, I I mean, that's that was the shock of it is that I tweeted two thousand seventeen tweet randomly tweeted. As somebody who's had a breakdown, just want to say, look, have a great, it was meant world mental health day. As somebody who's had a breakdown, just want to say, look after yourself today, get some help if you can. Got on the plane, flew to America, got off the plane, fifty thousand retweets. Calls from ITV, calls from the BBC, calls from the Guardian, calls from the Independent. Oh, my God, you had a break and I just completely forgot I hadn't gone public with it. I've told everybody. It's been a bit of an anecdote for me, a bit of a late night drunken anecdote for me that I'd had a breakdown and spent time in a minute.

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  But it's only since doing that that I've really looked at it and really understood it. That moment of oversharing has led to all of this, has led to my first book. It's going to lead to my second book. It's led to this reckoning, which would not have happened had I not have sent that tweet.

• 1:02:01Steven Bartlett?

  Two thousand and nineteen, you produced a documentary.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:02:07Steven Bartlett?

  Everybody talks about that documentary, really incredibly powerful, but but just artistically brilliant in so many ways. But so many people talk about it, you know, I even had members of my team put in big brackets. It is so good when they were referring to a documentary, they don't usually do that. It was really profound and important in so many ways. How did that change your life?

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  Again, because um.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  And it's this is really odd, but I'd I'd I'd seen that documentary. Almost a thousand times because I'd watched it nearly every day a year before it went out. The night it went out.

• 1:02:46Speaker 00

  I was absolutely terrified and I, as soon as I saw adverts for it, I panicked.

• 1:02:52Speaker 00

  And I was, nearly called the BBC and said, I don't want to go, I, I, take it off, take it off. I was really scared and, and, and that, that was really unusual for me because I'd seen it and I, I was happy with it. But going public with it was a whole nother thing and I was really scared, really anxious. And the, I think the whole house picked up on it because my kids went to bed early. My wife went to bed early. Uh, uh, you know, and she, she watches, you know, she went and she was like, she was, I, I, afterwards she said she was worried that, you know, the kids might get ribbed at school or, you know, your dad's this, your dad's that.

• 1:03:33Speaker 00

  And I hadn't even thought about that. And I suddenly thought, fuck. You know, I, I'm letting people in here. And I was really scared. And I remember I, that night I had a therapy session online with my therapist. And when we finished it, it was kind of dark and I thought,

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  well, it's got half an hour left to go. I'm not even going to watch it. I'm just going to go to bed.

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  And I was just about to go to sleep and see every single device in my house was beep.

• 1:04:06Speaker 00

  Everything was just buzzing and it was, I like, and then, and then the house, house phone went. And I jumped out of bed to, to, I didn't want to wake the house and it was my mum. And the first thing she said was, brilliant. And that really calmed me down. I went, I went, I went, watch, she went, she said, I've just watched it. She said, brilliant. Well done, son. Huge sigh of relief. And then started looking at all these messages and emails and they were all really emotional and like,

• 1:04:39Speaker 00

  and moving.

• 1:04:41Speaker 00

  And, um,

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  went to bed and got up in the morning, went to take, take my dog for a walk like I normally, and I could not walk ten feet

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  without complete strangers coming up to me in tears. I'm, I swear to God, going, just want to say, Mr. Hayward, thank you. And I'm, and normally when you're an actor, people leave you alone. You know what it's like when you're on the telly, people kind of go, that guy, that's that guy off the telly. But suddenly it was Mr. Harewood, not the guy from Homeland, or the guy from Supergirl, or the guy from, it was Mr. Harewood. Excuse me, Mr. Harewood, just wanna say, thank you so much. Tears strolling down their face. My dad had a breakdown and we never talked about it and just wanna say the fact that you, we all suddenly started talking about it and start talking about dad and

• 1:05:29Speaker 00

  I'm blubbing, they're crying, then I go, thank you very much, walk up, somebody else, excuse me, Mr. Harewood, just wanna say. And I, I suddenly realised how common it is. And how everybody was touched by it because you just don't talk about it. There's a shame attached to, particularly psychosis, and particularly to being taken away. There's a shame attached to it. For some reason, maybe because I'm an actor, I have no shame. So me, a recognisable, successful actor, talking about it. Allowed them to talk about it. Got a call from mine saying,

• 1:06:09Speaker 00

  phones ringing off the hook, people are talking about psychosis because they didn't, they didn't, that now they understand what happened to their son. Now they understand what's happening to their, who's now only just been sectioned that morning. And on this book tour, I constantly do signings. And nearly every single time I sign, I go to one of these book tours.

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  There's somebody who comes up to buy the book for it to get it signed and they're crying and they go, I've just come out of a mental institution, I just wanna say, seeing you, it gives me hope that I can get better. Or there's a mother who says, my son's just been sectioned, crying her eyes out. My son's just been sectioned, he was away at drama, he was away at school, because it happens normally when kids go to university. Or when they go away from home and they might smoke, they might drink, they might find themselves in a strange environment.

• 1:07:07Speaker 00

  That's when it happens. And the amount of times I've had to kind of get up and just hug the stranger and just say they'll get better.

• 1:07:17Steven Bartlett?

  I sometimes sit here with people and there's a moment where they let the wall down. And the wall can be a number of things. Sometimes it's sexuality. Sometimes it's something that they've been been holding inside of them. You know, they might have told friends, but letting the world in and then feeling that feedback that, that, you know, people didn't, weren't attacking them. They didn't lose their job and, and that sometimes can be quite a liberating thing. From then on, once we've let the wall down, whatever it is, and really let people in and see our, our deepest insecurities or our fears, life can feel different. We can be more open and honest and vulnerable and.

• 1:07:48Speaker 00

  Can't say that happened because I then had three years of dealing with it.

• 1:07:52Steven Bartlett?

  Yes, tell me about that.

• 1:07:53Speaker 00

  Because I thought, oh, okay, I've let the world in. And as you say, where's that moment of

• 1:08:01Speaker 00

  relief?

• 1:08:02Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  And it was torture because I couldn't cope with all these people coming up and saying, thank you so much. Normally you've got that shield, as I said, you've got that shield as a recognizable face where people don't bother you on the train. People don't bother you in the street, but they were. And they were coming with these really emotional stories. Some people, some people's parents died being restrained. Now, I, I talk about seven policemen jumping on me and giving me what's called an emergency tranquilization. I talk about that in my book. How I survived that, I don't know, because countless people have died like

• 1:08:42Speaker 00

  that. Black people being restrained by police. The amount of crim, the criminalization of that, the criminalization, particularly of black people in that period of illness, of psychosis, is, look at the people in America. You, people shot because they're acting strange. They're in, they're in a moment of medical crisis, but they happen to be naked, running down the street screaming, you will get shot. People don't understand it. People have been arrested. People have been, one guy knew he was having, and one guy I met knew he was having a breakdown, went to the hospital. They refused to treat him, went to another hospital. They refused to treat him, started banging on the door. They called the police. He got arrested. He got, he

• 1:09:25Speaker 00

  got sent to prison and it was only in prison that he got treated. And so this whole book has, has really opened up the whole. How particularly people of colour are criminalised at a moment of crisis by being arrested and then being treated. Like for me, it was only when I showed the book to my consultant, she said, do you realise you were given three times the legal doses of tranquilisers?

• 1:09:53Speaker 00

  And I said, why is that? She said, well, it was, it's, and then I, again, once the book got out, I had somebody contact me saying, this is standard practice. Because most people are afraid of big black men. So most times a large black man is sectioned, you will get knocked the fuck out. For no medical reason, other than we're scared of this big guy, let's just up the dose here. And that's all it was. So it just, all this stuff was coming out, all these stuff was coming at me. And I couldn't really

• 1:10:32Speaker 00

  process it. And I remember going into my therapist and just crying my eyes out, goes, it's too much, it's too much, I can't cope with it. And funny enough, my medical records that I find in the documentary, I hadn't opened those

• 1:10:49Speaker 00

  notes for two years, since I got them, since filming it. But before I wrote the book, and I knew where they were, they were in my flat in Vancouver. I knew exactly where they were. And once I decided to write the book, I remember flying back to shoot the next season of Supergirl.

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  And we flew into quarantine because it was a couple of years ago. So you had fourteen days on your own. And the first thing I did, walk in the flat, got my medical records out and I read them cover to cover. And that was really tough. Because you're reading your disturbed self. Everything that I'd said, done, was re- was recorded. So I'm reading all the stuff I did and getting flashes of moments that I thought, fuck, that's where that memory comes from. Taking a piss in the middle of an office and

• 1:11:39Speaker 00

  just the most weird stuff that I did and said.

• 1:11:43Steven Bartlett?

  Is it scary to know that it's, you're capable of going, getting to that place?

• 1:11:49Speaker 00

  Yes and no, and, and you know, again, I think of myself, thinking about the acting side of it. You know, I've always had this ability to, not method, but I really throw myself into a character. And I love that.

• 1:12:06Speaker 00

  And I think maybe there's part of me that having pushed myself, having let myself go, not many people go there. I literally went crazy.

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  Crossed the line into unacceptable behaviour, where your behaviour is deemed, we have to take you away, unsafe for yourself and for others, sectioned. I've crossed that line. So for me now, I think

• 1:12:40Speaker 00

  in acting, anything up to that line is fair game. Fair game. And I love it. And that's why I would, will push, push myself. And I look for characters who are like that, because, who do push.

• 1:12:57Speaker 00

  That's what, I don't know, that's what makes acting so, so great for me and so exciting. Because I can behave like somebody, somebody else.

• 1:13:03Steven Bartlett?

  But even reading about, even reading about psychosis as someone that's never been through it. I'm going to be, it, it makes me realise that it's completely possible for me to find myself in that situation.

• 1:13:16Speaker 00

  Absolutely, anybody.

• 1:13:17Steven Bartlett?

  And that, and that's what, because you know, I, when I grew up with mental health, I thought it's something that happens to other people. And then you, and then you get a flavour of it, right, yourself. And you go, fuck, we can all, we all have, uh, mental health. And, and reading the stories of psychosis and how a very normal young man can quite quickly, apparently quickly.

• 1:13:37Speaker 00

  Very quickly.

• 1:13:38Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. But I mean, you, from what you've described, it's a series of events over time, but apparently very quickly fall into that situation. In some respects, makes me.

• 1:13:49Steven Bartlett?

  Realise that, you know.

• 1:13:51Speaker 00

  We are very highly strong individuals. I mean, the brain.

• 1:13:55Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  You know how incredible that is? It's an incredible muscle, an incredible muscle. There's thousands of, of, of uh firing electro, thousands every day, just going off in our brains. Some of them misfire and some of them very quickly can lead to you taking your own life. And, you know, I know how, having, you know, having been there, I was, I'm just lucky that, I think my doctor said it, that he said, you know, we're lucky David is a

• 1:14:33Speaker 00

  a calm, essentially a clown, because my psychosis played out in all sorts of silly ways.

• 1:14:44Speaker 00

  But that, I did everything that voice told me to do that night. Had that voice have told me to jump off Thames Bridge, I would have done it.

• 1:14:52Speaker 00

  I would have done it. So I'd met people who the voice told them to throw themselves in front of, as that young girl in the documentary said, throw yourself in front of the next white van. And she did. And it hit her.

• 1:15:09Speaker 00

  It's, you know, it, it is, it is a very powerful

• 1:15:16Speaker 00

  thing. And it can happen to anybody.

• 1:15:23Steven Bartlett?

  Where do you find yourself today? So you're three, three or four years on now from that documentary coming out and you've been on that journey as you describe it of rebuilding the house and.

• 1:15:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, you know, it's taken me this long to, I think I've come through, I think I was really in pain.

• 1:15:42Speaker 00

  I didn't realise it at the time, but I think I was really, when the documentary went out. I was very, very vulnerable. And it really was painful and I it was uncomfortable.

• 1:15:56Speaker 00

  And I used I get I would get very emotional. I'd be in Tesco's and somebody had come up to me as I bought my sausages and say, saw your documentary and I would just go. They'd go, I'd go.

• 1:16:10Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 1:16:12Speaker 00

  Being reminded of it, they would make me cry because they'd tell me about their uncle.

• 1:16:19Speaker 00

  And they'd start going, I don't know, it's something about the helplessness of seeing a loved one acting very out of character. And

• 1:16:31Speaker 00

  some of them don't don't recover. Because you don't understand it. So I I I used to find it very emotional. And I think I've moved through that period of

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  vulnerability into a period of healing. And I think I'm in that healing period now. I said to you, if you just if we'd have done this doc this podcast last year, I don't think I'd have got through it like this. It would have. And every now and again, I find a rising emotional level as I'm talking about it now, because I know it sounds very weird.

• 1:17:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I feel like everyone must be sitting there thinking, God, he's nuts, you know? But I've sort of dealt with that.

• 1:17:10Steven Bartlett?

  Was there ever any regrets about doing that documentary?

• 1:17:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:17:14Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 1:17:14Speaker 00

  Yes. Which all disappeared the morning after I it went out. The the the regrets were all the

• 1:17:21Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, before.

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  The all the regrets were. And then maybe afterwards, there was like, maybe I've said too much. You know, maybe people don't now see because since then I've done a lot more, a lot more documentaries. And um more documentaries than I have dramas. And I've been back in England now for a year. And in America, I was playing leading characters. Three dimensional authoritative characters. And I haven't had a single offer of anything like that since coming back. And that's been really worrying. And I suddenly thought, well, maybe I've said too much. Or maybe I'm not, you know. And you know, and I thought, maybe I've crossed the line.

• 1:18:06Speaker 00

  But I don't care anymore. And I've sort of, sort of gone, I'm embracing who I am now.

• 1:18:11Steven Bartlett?

  Sorry, you, you, you've, since you came back from America.

• 1:18:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:15Steven Bartlett?

  You haven't had enough to play leading characters.

• 1:18:18Speaker 00

  Not one.

• 1:18:19Steven Bartlett?

  And do you have a suspicion that that's to do with?

• 1:18:21Speaker 00

  I, I worried that. That's what I'm saying. You say, you know, you, you, you talk about, do I think, there was a fear of that. I don't think that's the case.

• 1:18:28Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. But it's just.

• 1:18:30Speaker 00

  But, but again, there's our anxieties and fears and maybe I've said too much. Maybe people feel now.

• 1:18:37Speaker 00

  Or you, one, one reviewer said, David, all we see him now is in documentaries. I say, but the only reason you see me in that is because I'm not going to play some shit role.

• 1:18:44Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:18:45Speaker 00

  I want complexity. I want a challenge. So I'm finding that in the world of documentaries. And I really enjoy doing that.

• 1:18:53Steven Bartlett?

  Your career as an actor, and now as an entrepreneur, many other things, and a director, unbelievably successful, unbelievably successful. Against many, many odds. Why are you? Yeah, you have the talent. You're a class clown. You said that, you know, back in the school days and all these things. You're a funny guy, but that's not enough. I know lots of funny people. They're not actors.

• 1:19:15Speaker 00

  I don't think that's for me to say.

• 1:19:17Steven Bartlett?

  No, but this is, this is why it's such a tough question, because I actually think only you would read, you know, people might have told you along the years, but I really think that when you look at your peers, that's one way I've, I've tried to figure myself out is what makes me different from these other, my peers in my industry. And I go, oh, that's the thing I'm particularly good at, that bit there.

• 1:19:35Speaker 00

  It's interesting though, because, you know, and again, maybe I'm oversharing, but you know, my therapist, we, we, we talk, you know, sometimes, you know, when I first started to asking him about this, not living up to this ideal blackness.

• 1:19:50Speaker 00

  He said, well, part of the reason why you have been so successful is because you are this.

• 1:19:59Speaker 00

  You can go, you can be over here, you can be over there, you're formless. And I love that Bruce Lee will say, be like water. You pour water into a cup, it's a cup. You pour water into a bottle, it's a bottle. You pour water into a teacup, it's a teacup. I haven't tried to be one thing, and I think some actors come out and think, I'm gonna be like this.

• 1:20:20Speaker 00

  And I'm gonna be like that, and I haven't. I changed my voice because I didn't wanna play Brummies all my life. So I learnt the RP. I can do, if I wanted to do street, I can do street, which always used to piss me off when I was young. Because people go, oh, he's a bit too Rada. It's a charac- I play characters. But because you're, I don't know, maybe black actors don't play characters, they just play black people. I play characters. And I think that's, that USP that I've had, that I like playing characters, has enabled me to

• 1:20:56Speaker 00

  change. And it's also what's constrained me because, as I said to you when I came out of drama school, you weren't an actor, you were a black actor. These days, you're allowed to be an actor. John Boyega is an actor. Daniel Kaluuya is an actor. He's not a black actor. When I came out, I was a black actor, and I found it so constricting. I'm more than this. I can play anything.

• 1:21:22Speaker 00

  And that's, maybe, you know, that's what I think is my, of my generation, that's probably one of the things that I

• 1:21:32Speaker 00

  perhaps gave me my unique USP.

• 1:21:36Steven Bartlett?

  It's funny, the things that often give us our USPs are also entirely linked to the things that give us our difficulties and our struggles. And it seems to be the case from what you've said. It's funny, because what I heard from one of that is that your versatility as an actor came from the versatility that you had to demonstrate in your real life as well.

• 1:21:55Speaker 00

  One hundred percent. And I think that my experience, particularly getting out, you know, getting out of a mental institution, acting my way out of an institution.

• 1:22:08Speaker 00

  It's all been good training. And I think, you know, my crossing that line has given me that USP.

• 1:22:15Steven Bartlett?

  That kid that came out of Rada, if you could have a chat with him, if he was sat here, you could just say a couple of sentences to him. The sentences that would-

• 1:22:22Speaker 00

  I would one hundred percent tell him, and I tell this to all young actors. To all young people, be prepared for the tough times. People think it's gonna be, life's gonna be roses and people think it's gonna be easy. And yeah, things are great now, but be prepared for when things get a bit rocky. Because they will get rocky. Tough ti- you know yourself in business, it's not all about winning. Sometimes you learn your best lessons in failures. So I would, would just, and again, we'll talk about this with my therapist, that I didn't take care of my younger self.

• 1:23:04Speaker 00

  I di- I didn't take care of him. So now I try and take care of my younger self. And I always try and tell people, look after yourself. Really look after yourself, because.

• 1:23:15Steven Bartlett?

  What does that mean to you, look after yourself?

• 1:23:18Speaker 00

  Uh, control what I can control. And don't, if I don't get a job, I don't get a job. I can't, there's nothing I can do about that. I can control how I feel about it. And just think it wasn't for me. And right now, as I said to you, there's thousands of things that are going my way and thousands of calls are going, acting maybe not, but that's okay. It'll come around, maybe it'll come around. I can't control that. I can control what I can control. So I've just got to keep myself sharp, look after myself, don't allow, I could easily allow myself to get down now. Cause I've not been working.

• 1:23:59Speaker 00

  But I'm, I'm busier than I've ever been. Outside of that, creating this company, looking to recreate other work, doing documentaries, meeting people. It's, it's a very exciting time for me. And I wouldn't have had this time had I been starring in some show. So there's benefits to having time on your hands.

• 1:24:22Steven Bartlett?

  When you said that about controlling what you can control, it made me realise that, this word popped into my head. I almost imagined myself stood at a crossroads and one path was like, control what I can control and that says left acceptance. And on the other hand, the right turning is the resentment that you said your father had. Which is that slowly, slowly, slow insidious build up of like resentment towards the world. And it's a choice.

• 1:24:46Speaker 00

  You can't go that way. And I'm determined not to go that way. Is keep it open. Keep. Attracting good vibes. And at the moment, that's where it's leading and it's a very exciting time. I've only been back a year as well. So who knows what's going to happen.

• 1:25:02Steven Bartlett?

  We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the previous guest asks a question for the next guest. Before I ask you the question, I actually was really intrigued because I know you've just you've started a production company.

• 1:25:10Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:25:11Steven Bartlett?

  What was the thinking behind that? And how's that going? It's a new challenge.

• 1:25:15Speaker 00

  It's very exciting. And, uh, you know, I think over the last couple of years, I've seen how some people, I've been involved in projects and I don't, I haven't exactly been run very well. And I think, well, I, I, you know, I've now got the experience to know I can do that job. I, I know I'm bringing my A game. But if the people above me aren't bringing their A game, it's going to make it tough. So I'd like to bring excellence to everything that I do. That's what I think I do is I bring excellence to everything I do. So I want to put some excellence out there.

• 1:25:54Steven Bartlett?

  And what do you want to make? What kind of things?

• 1:25:56Speaker 00

  Documentaries, dramas, give myself some good roles. Um, why not? You know, but ask questions of, of the audience, work in a different way, create work that isn't being written yet. Why wait for somebody else to write it? Create it yourself. I'm fifty seven years old.

• 1:26:15Steven Bartlett?

  You look about thirty five.

• 1:26:16Speaker 00

  Thank you. And you say to yourself, well, why hasn't that role come along yet? Create it yourself. And that's one thing the younger generation are doing brilliantly, starting their production companies, you know, valuing themselves. And I think that's

• 1:26:34Speaker 00

  something I really want to do. Put myself at the top, be the boss man, like you.

• 1:26:40Steven Bartlett?

  It comes with its costs, but that's a conversation for another time. Um, the question that was left for you.

• 1:26:48Steven Bartlett?

  What is a personal legacy you want to leave for yourself slash children?

• 1:27:02Speaker 00

  I would say

• 1:27:05Speaker 00

  crack open the universe, you know, inspire those around, be an inspirational figure

• 1:27:15Speaker 00

  in, in what you do, be an example in what you do and

• 1:27:21Speaker 00

  I'll give you an example of that, but I've just been casting this film and as a director

• 1:27:31Speaker 00

  and um two leading roles, two black, two, two black people. All these young black kids came in the door, young black actors.

• 1:27:43Speaker 00

  And the first thing they said, oh my God, man, I used to watch you when I was at school. Thank you so much for I had no, I'm like, I was feeling, I was probably feeling really depressed that morning. But even without me knowing, just being there, just by doing what I did, I inspired that kid to think about even becoming an actor, just even think about it. So

• 1:28:09Speaker 00

  I would say to, you know, that, that inspire people by your actions.

• 1:28:16Speaker 00

  Crack up in the universe because we're still living in an age where we're the first. I was the first black actor in Atlanta. This was the first black person to, we're still living in that age. So I think there's a whole

• 1:28:30Speaker 00

  legacy to leave, a whole legacy to open up. Be an example, not just to your generation, but to future generations.

• 1:28:41Steven Bartlett?

  Well, David, I have to say you're certainly that, you're certainly an example, you're certainly that inspiration and that role model models to so many people. So if that is your objective, then I think you've already achieved it in a tremendous way. Um, no doubt you've got so much more to do. And I have a sneaking suspicion based on your tenacity and your, um, which has been present since you were a very young man, that you'll find a way to, to crack open the universe in any way that you desire. I have absolutely no doubt about that. In fact.

• 1:29:09Speaker 00

  Thank you. I hope to do that. That's my plan.

• 1:29:11Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you for inspiring me as well. And I don't act, but watching a black man rise so high and achieve so much is incredibly inspiring for me. And my role models are varied across industries and you're certainly one of them. So.

• 1:29:25Speaker 00

  But you know, and right back at you, because you inspired, you likewise in yourself inspire people. And, you know, I was listening to, I say, listen to your Chris Kamara piece, which was beautiful, by the way.

• 1:29:37Steven Bartlett?

  No, thank you.

• 1:29:38Speaker 00

  And, and, and hearing how he's inspired people. You know, a lot of the people who go through that, but they don't think it. They can't even imagine the world. But even just by being yourself, you inspire people. So let's write back at you.

• 1:29:56Steven Bartlett?

  Well, thank you, David. Means a means a time coming from you. And I'm sure this conversation, we're going to continue off there in various forms. So thank you.

• 1:30:02Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:30:02Steven Bartlett?

  Huge inspiration.