Will Poulter on OCD and intrusive thoughts: “It’s never easy but it gets easier!”
Happy Place
Fearne Cotton
4.6 • 15.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2025
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Coping with mental health conditions is never easy, but it does get easier; that’s what actor Will Poulter has learnt through his own experiences with OCD, anxiety, and intrusive thoughts.
In this chat with Fearne, Will explains how OCD has manifested for him ever since he was a young kid. He also talks through why finding reasons to be grateful for the lessons mental health conditions have taught you can be helpful.
If you’re honest with yourself... would you give yourself or others more grace if they had to take time off work because they’d broken their leg, as opposed to because their mental health was poor? Fearne and Will unpack that one, as well as discussing the importance of personalisation in looking after our brains. The same medication, meditation practice, or diet, is going to affect us all differently.
Plus, do you constantly worry that you’ve said the wrong thing and pissed someone off? Fearne and Will have been there and offer their advice for overcoming that spiral...
You can see Will in UK cinemas in Death of a Unicorn from April 4th, and Warfare from April 18th.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and a big welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. This is the show that no self-compassion |
| 0:07.6 | isn't selfish. Today I'm chatting to Will Poulter. I was probably 14 when I first started experiencing |
| 0:15.1 | kind of obsessive-convulsive thoughts and the ruminations and I was constantly living with the |
| 0:19.8 | uncertainty of did someone like me or |
| 0:21.9 | did I say the wrong thing and that was a big source of my kind of anxiety for the longest time was |
| 0:27.0 | am I enough am I okay it sounds so odd I mean I would never wish OCD depression or anxiety on anyone |
| 0:34.5 | but in a weird way I'm oddly thankful for my mental health conditions |
| 0:39.3 | because it's allowed me to appreciate the moments where I am more happy or more content or |
| 0:44.5 | just more stable. Well, how are you, Lovelies? God, I've had a right old busy week, but it's been |
| 0:49.0 | so much fun. It's been one of those weeks where I felt extremely lucky. A pop to Ireland for work, which was a joy because, as we all know, Irish people are the dream. |
| 1:00.3 | Just met the loveliest people ever and had so much fun. |
| 1:04.8 | And at this talk that I was doing in Dublin, the centre of Dublin, it was like a big women's summit, |
| 1:12.1 | I got to hang out with Joanna Lumley, who, I mean, I'm not the first person to say this. I effing love. She's so |
| 1:19.3 | amazing. And do you know what is so tantalising is hearing her say, oh darling, darling, how are you? |
| 1:26.9 | To hear her say whispering the word darling at me? |
| 1:29.8 | Sort of tingled all over. |
| 1:31.2 | It's outrageous. |
| 1:32.1 | She is such a legend and it was so brilliant to hang out with her and she is as lovely as one would imagine. |
| 1:37.3 | That was a real joy. |
| 1:39.1 | Whizzed back from Ireland, obviously had half a Guinness. |
| 1:41.6 | Also, now spring is springing. |
| 1:43.8 | Been doing a bit of clearing out, |
... |
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