Do you remember Hannah Murray? She played two unforgettable characters years apart before mysteriously disappearing from screens. The English actress, now 36, first captivated audiences as Cassie, a fragile and endearing teenager in the cult series Skins in 2007. The character, struggling with eating disorders and great emotional vulnerability, brought her immediate recognition and laid the foundation for a promising career.
A few years later, at the other end of the spectrum, she appeared in Game of Thrones, the HBO fantasy saga, portraying Gilly, a brave and wild young woman, alongside John Bradley (Samwell Tarly). Her character and Sam’s are among the few to survive until the end of the series. Hannah Murray was part of the show for seven seasons until the highly anticipated conclusion in 2019. After 2020, her screen appearances became increasingly scarce, leaving many fans wondering what had happened to her.
Hannah Murray, after Game of Thrones, the descent into hell
“When I was 27, I was an actress, and I was filming the fantasy series Game of Thrones. But it was in my personal life, behind the cameras, that things were truly fantastic. Truly amazing. Truly terrifying.” In a promotional video by her publisher, Penguin Random House, Hannah Murray announces the release of her memoir, in which she recounts the years of wandering that followed the show’s end.
In the book, she explains how in 2017, while Game of Thrones was a global success, the challenges of being an actress piled up, including humiliations during auditions and numerous rehearsals of violent scenes that weakened her mental health. To cope, she becomes involved with a reiki practitioner who promises a new treatment like magic.
Back in England, she becomes increasingly involved with what she calls a “charismatic leader” whom she falls in love with. This leads to “promises of secret knowledge and increasingly complex rituals” that turn out to be destructive mechanisms. At this point, Hannah finds herself isolated from friends and family during an intensive training week, and her mental health collapses. Her story, she summarizes, is “a tale of magic and insanity, a spiritual awakening that ended in nervous breakdown.” Following this, she is hospitalized and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and “struggles to understand the difference between what is real and what is imaginary.”
Hannah Murray joins the long list of Hollywood stars linked to a sect
Today, Hannah Murray seems to be doing well and says she is “very happy” to publish this book, which took 7 years to write. With this story, the English actress joins the long and sadly infamous list of personalities caught up in sect movements. Allison Mack, known for her role in Smallville, was sentenced to three years in prison for her involvement in the NXIVM cult, accused of sex trafficking. Tom Cruise has been a member of the Church of Scientology since the late 80s, an organization classified as a cult in France. Actress Rose McGowan, star of Charmed, grew up in the Children of God cult from the age of nine, before her father managed to escape with her. A path taken by many actors and actresses affected by the life of stardom…
