Deceased actor Michael K. Williams began initiating therapy to address his struggles with drug abuse during one of his last interviews after filming HBO’s “Lovecraft Country.”
A few months before he was found dead of an alleged heroin overdose, Williams told the syndicated television show Tamron Hall that he sought mental health treatment after finishing the Emmy-nominated performance.
“I just started therapy, you know, and I took myself very seriously and started to decompress, as you said, my head’s criticism and what and how this has affected me: my actions, my responses to certain situations, my relationships “. he said in a video clip posted to YouTube on Feb. 25.
“It was a very new process for me.”
Williams, who was promoting the movie “Body Brokers,” about a crooked drug treatment center in Los Angeles, said filming it “frankly made me feel bad to my stomach” and led me to memories of watching TV commercials for rehab facilities “when I was crying to sleep and listening to BeBe and CeCe Winans.”
Williams also called his supporting role in the film a “perfect example” of how “people often think that when a person quits drugs or alcohol, all problems go away.”
“That couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.
“Drugs and alcohol are not the problems, they are just symptoms of the problem. And once these things disappear, the real work begins, you know … working on all the flaws of the character, the moral compass, the biased moral compass. “
Williams added, “These are the things that need to be addressed. These are the reasons why we have risen in the first place and our inability to face life in living conditions.”
In an October interview in Men’s Health magazine, Williams recalled that he “self-medicated” as a teenager and tried to commit suicide at age 17, saying, “I was lost. I was very uncomfortable with women. There were drugs. “
“I just remember feeling like,‘ Hey, maybe the world will be better off without me. ’And I took a bottle of pills, I woke up with my stomach pumping,” he said.
In 2016, Wiliams also told National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” program about fighting drug addiction while playing his advanced role as robber Omar Little on HBO’s “The Wire,” saying no. he felt “worthy.” ”Of the opportunity.
“I could have used it as a tool, as a tool to encourage me. It could have been cathartic for me, [but] I decided to wear it as a Spider-Man costume and fly and say, ‘Whee! Look at me! I have web in my hands! “, He said.
And when he finished his work on “The Wire,” Williams said, “He had zero tools, personally speaking, to try to let go.”
“I wasn’t stealing people or anything stupid like that, but it definitely carried that dark energy that was Omar – it was a dark soul, a tortured soul – and I just … lived in it and that was what people were he was attracted to … The lines blurred, “he said.
The following year, Williams described the Deadline website as “the whimsical son,” adding, “Uncle Mike was the drug jerk.”
But he also said he used meditation and prayer to recover from addiction after “The Wire” and that he had adopted new “strategies” so as not to get lost in the characters he portrayed.
“Number one, I have a very good and solid team of people around me when I’m doing these dark roles. I call them my tie. Tie me a little bow at my ankle and they will keep me upright, ”he said.
“I keep good people with a healthy mentality and I protect myself. Be responsible. “