Charlotte Rampling has spoken frankly of the depression that stole her forties, describing it as a dark sickness that kept her off the screen for ten years.
The Oscar-nominated actress, 71, said the illness was so severe that to overcome it required her complete attention, meaning she took on very little work. She added: ‘It’s a dark, dark sickness. You either come out or you don’t. I did, but it takes a long time.
‘My forties were about dealing with that. I could only do that. ‘You just live with your time and try to work out as well as you can how the f*** you survive in it.’ Miss Rampling said the result of her absence from the screen was that the calls from casting directors soon dried up.
She told the Sunday Times Magazine: ‘Once you say “No” to everything for a while, well, then they just go on to other people, it’s natural.’
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In 1967, her elder sister Sarah committed suicide at 23 , shortly after giving birth to a son prematurely. Following this devastating loss, Miss Rampling began to withdraw into herself. The actress, who last year played lawyer Jocelyn Knight in the ITV drama Broadchurch, was first treated for depression in 1984, and had a nervous breakdown seven years later.
Then in 1995, she separated from her second husband, the French composer Jean-Michel Jarre, after he was seen checking into a hotel with another woman. But she cautioned against the suggestion that she became depressed as a result of such difficult events in her life, adding: ‘It’s all these influences that you cannot handle.
‘It’s too easy to say, “Oh yes, because the sister. Oh, her husband was leaving her, that’s why she had the depression.’
© Daily Mail