Amanda Bynes Went Into ‘Deep Depression’ Following ‘She’s the Man’ Role
It's no secret that Amanda Bynes was not in a good place four years ago. From the DUIs to the tweets to threatening to murder her parents, it was clear that the former child star was troubled.
In a recent tell-all profile with Paper, the All That comedian opens about her struggles with depression, drug addiction and self-image.
In 2006, Bynes starred in She's the Man. The modern update on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night saw the actress play a teenage girl who dresses up like a boy and poses as her brother. It's an iconic early aughts comedy, but it really took a toll on Bynes.
"When the movie came out and I saw it," she said, "I went into a deep depression for 4-6 months because I didn't like how I looked when I was a boy." Seeing what she looked like when dressed more masculine was "a super strange and out-of-body experience. It just really put me into a funk."
That feeling of self-awareness didn't stop there, and excessive drug use didn't help.
While on the set of Hall Pass, which Bynes ended up dropping out of (contrary to reports she got fired), she was so high on Adderall that she was freaking out and couldn't remember her lines. She "remembers seeing my image on the screen and literally tripping out and thinking my arm looked so fat because it was in the foreground or whatever and I remember rushing off set and thinking, Oh my god, I look so bad."
While attending a screening of her last film, Easy A, the actress — this time high on marijuana — once again was horrified at the image looking back at her. "I literally couldn't stand my appearance in that movie and I didn't like my performance. I was absolutely convinced I needed to stop acting after seeing it," she confessed.
But that's all changed.
Now 32 years old, Bynes has been sober for almost four years and is going to school for Merchandise Product Development at Los Angeles' Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) with a clear mind and soul. She's also planning her return to acting, which she's approaching "kind of the same way I did as a kid, which is with excitement and hope for the best."
"I have no fear of the future," she declared. "I've been through the worst and came out the other end and survived it so I just feel like it's only up from here."