Charlene McKenna has opened up about her battle with anxiety.
Ahead of playing the role of Daisy Buchanan in a stage production of The Great Gatsby at The Gate Theatre in Dublin – Charlene lifted the lid on life as a hard-working actress when she was in her mid-20s.
Recalling one Christmas when she was feeling terrible, living alone in London, and hadn’t stopped working for years – the actress revealed how a trip home to Monaghan helped her.
“The anxiety was in my body and I was wondering: ‘What’s wrong with me?’ I couldn’t figure it out. I went back up to Monaghan and I went home for a month; I saw nobody. I look back at them times now as a blessing. There’s a good quote that says, ‘When the sea is rough, mend your sails’,” she told the Sunday Independent.
Broken: Charlene hit a wall in her mid twenties | VIPIRELAND.COM
“I thought I had to say yes to everybody, and I was breaking. I wasn’t taking care of myself. I went job to job to job – not taking into account that I was a rural girl, planted into London. This is before iPhones; this was with maps and books.
“I kept trying to take everything in my stride, and take in the intimidation of these massive auditions, where you’re hearing these famous names flying around. And then I just hit a wall, and slid down it and just broke.
“As I’ve got older, I’ve got a bit better at sticking up for myself and at saying no, in a good way. I have a great therapist that I talk to if I need to, not all the time.”
“But anxiety, it never goes away. It ebbs and it flows. So there’ll be times when it’s worse – it’s screaming, and it’s deafening. And then times it’ll be quieter.”
Electric: Despite her anxiety – Charlene says nerves on stage can be “electric” | VIPIRELAND.COM
For someone with anxiety, live theatre must feel like hell on earth – but, Charlene insists that nerves can be “electric”.
“You’re always in the wings going, ‘I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to do that – no, no, no – where’s the exit?’ and then, BAM, you’re on stage and you’re in the thick of it.
“You can let your head run away with you and then you can go, ‘At the end of the day, it’s a play. It’s a night’s entertainment; it’s a story to tell. It’s not open-heart surgery. No one’s going to die.’
Opening up: Charlene says life as an actor can be very lonely | BRIAN MCEVOY
The brunette also talked about the “very lonely” part of being an actor – that people often overlook.
“Between jobs, your hours are spent by yourself reading your scripts, learning your lines, reading your books about your scripts, going from these huge big collaborations to being just by yourself.
“Filming, filming, filming, filming, filming. Or travelling, travelling, travelling, travelling, travelling – by yourself, by yourself, by yourself, by yourself.
“I’m very, very intimate with my suitcase. So many times I’ve gone, ‘I’m done. I’m done, I’m quitting.’ It’s like you go on holidays, but there comes a point when you’re ready to go home,” she explained.
