The Crowded Room, which tells the story of Billy Milligan. Milligan is the first person ever acquitted of a crime because of multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative personality disorder. It stars Tom Holland and the actor spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the show.
He wasn’t afraid to broach the subject of mental health and said, “Learning about mental health and the power of it, and speaking to psychiatrists about [the characters] Danny and Billy’s struggles, has been something that has been so informative to my own life.”
He said that it helped him to “recognizing triggers” and “things that stress me out” like social media.
That statement alone is such an important statement for him to make, because Tom is such a huge star and him talking about mental health can make others feel safe talking about mental health. We need to break the stigma.
It also is very important to recognize your triggers and what affects you. Him speaking about these things makes people feel less alone and able to speak about what they are going through.
Tom did say that filming The Crowded Room, “the mental aspect, it really beat me up and it took a long time for me to recover afterwards, to sort of get back to reality.”
“I was seeing myself in him, but in my personal life,” he said, being open about how the role affected him. “I remember having a bit of a meltdown at home and thinking, like, ‘I’m going to shave my head. I need to shave my head because I need to get rid of this character.’ And, obviously, we were mid-shooting, so I decided not to. … It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.”
The Crowded Room is an anthology series, “that will explore the true and inspirational stories of those who have struggled, and learned to successfully live with, mental illness. The first season is inspired by Daniel Keyes’ biography The Minds of Billy Milligan.“
The 10-part series comes from A Beautiful Mind’s Akiva Goldsman, who will write and exec produce.
We’re definitely looking forward to seeing The Crowded Room and the conversation around mental health continuing. Starring alongside Tom Holland in the series are Amanda Seyfried, Sasha Lane, Emmy Rossum, Will Chase, Sam Vartholomeos and Levon Hawke.
The first three episodes of the series debut June 9th, with one new episode weekly following the debut.
Will you be watching?
