Actor Will Poulter has been open about his personal struggles, even as he steps into the limelight with his latest role in A24’s eerie new horror film, Death of a Unicorn.
The London-born actor launched his career at just 13 years old. While his professional life flourished, he was secretly dealing with OCD, something he has only recently begun to speak about openly.
Speaking on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, Poulter revealed that he was diagnosed with OCD in his teens. Now aged 32, he recalled having intrusive thoughts from a young age, which is characteristic of the condition.
As a youngster, these mental challenges manifested in a more ‘imaginative’ manner. Poulter shared: “It [the OCD] just had a different and typically imaginative spin on it for a child. I can remember having this voice in my head, telling me if I didn’t walk on certain paving stones on the way up to my mum and dad’s house, something terrible was going to happen to them.”
He feels lucky to have received therapy early. “I was really lucky. I got access to therapy in my early teens. I was probably 14 when I first started experiencing obsessive compulsive thoughts and the ruminations and intrusive thoughts,” he told Fearne Cotton as reported by the Mirror.
Before he understood what he was dealing with, the star of Black Mirror was intimidated by his own thought processes, feeling alone in his struggle with OCD.
He candidly shared: “Until it was diagnosed and until I received that therapy, I just thought I was totally alone with this condition, or not even condition at that time, this way of thinking, with this defunct brain. I was so scared.
“And that I think is the scariest thing about any mental health issues and you can never underestimate how alone someone can feel in their state.”
Will Poulter has been commendably forthright about his mental health battles, while also dropping intriguing insights into his acting high points.
In 2023, he caused a stir by earning a spot in FX’s hit show The Bear, appearing in two episodes of its second season and reappearing for its third.
Desperate to be part of the Emmy-award winning series, Poulter revealed he ‘begged’ creator Christopher Storer for a role. Yet, he recently admitted that originally he hoped to create his own TV venture akin to The Bear.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Poulter spilled on previous dreams: “I was in conversation with a really big production company and I pitched them my show about chefs trying to make it in a big city, and I heard crickets, and I was little bit bummed.”
Coming across a billboard for The Bear in LA prompted him to get in touch with Storer, a move that paved the way for a successful partnership.
Musing about their rapport, he expressed: “We hit it off so well. And I begged him for a role in The Bear and he was kind enough to bless me with the part of Luca and it kind of changed my life man, it [is] like, a really really special part of my life now,” Poulter concluded.
The star is gearing up for his appearance in the much-anticipated seventh season of Netflix’s acclaimed series Black Mirror, set to drop on April 10. Poulter, no stranger to the Black Mirror universe, first appeared in the franchise with his role in the groundbreaking interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch back in 2018.
His character, Colin Ritman, makes a comeback in the seventh season’s fourth episode titled ‘Plaything’, which delves into the life of a murder suspect caught up in an avant-garde video game.
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