How X-Men’s Sophie Turner overcame battle with trolls who ‘made her life hell’ and anxiety over her weight
WHEN she signed up for Game Of Thrones as a shy 13-year-old, Sophie Turner had no idea it would make her one of the most recognisable actors in the world.
And just ten years on she is making her debut as a Hollywood leading lady in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, with Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy.
But Sophie’s rapid rise to fame has come at a price.
After taking the role of Sansa Stark in TV fantasy series Game Of Thrones, she became one of the first child stars to grow up under the social media spotlight.
And the relentless attention that came with being in the hugely successful show led the outwardly bubbly actress to suffer with negative body image issues, suicidal thoughts and severe depression.
Alongside Maisie Williams, 22, who played her sister Arya on the show, Sophie was hit with a deluge of vile comments from internet trolls.
Sophie, 23, who has 13.4million Instagram followers, told the American TV psychologist Dr Phil McGraw: “People would write ‘Sansa needs to lose 10lb, Sansa got fat’.” I used to get called wooden a lot, that bothered me. I believed it.”
Suddenly, she was worried about camera angles showing her “big nose” and started trying to lose weight.
Some days she wouldn’t eat anything apart from nuts and she would go back to her hotel to have a good cry with Maisie.
This insecurity about her appearance and her abilities as an actress led to anxiety.
Sophie said: “I’ve suffered with depression for about five or six years now. The biggest challenge for me was getting out of bed and getting out of the house.
“I used to think about suicide a lot when I was younger. I don’t know why, though.
“Maybe it’s just a weird fascination I used to have. I don’t think I ever would have gone through with it.”
Thanks to therapy, medication and the support of her husband Joe Jonas, 29, who is one third of pop group the Jonas Brothers, she’s now developing the resilience needed to survive in show business.
While Sophie’s childhood in Chesterton, Warks, was idyllic — she recalls “pigsties, barns and a paddock, and I used to muck around in the mud” with two older brothers Will and James — there has always been some darkness there.
She revealed: “My mum had a miscarriage — my twin died and I lived. That definitely affected me. I always felt as though something was missing.”
Her mum Sally, a nursery school teacher and dad Andrew, a pallet company manager, encouraged Sophie into acting, signing her up to Playbox Theatre Company, in Warwick, when she was just three.
Then, at 13, Sophie decided to apply with a few pals for a role in Game Of Thrones. To her surprise, after what she insists was a “terrible audition”, she was offered the part of Sansa Stark.
Sansa was a key character in George RR Martin’s novels, which the series was based on, so Sophie was offered a six-year deal.
For the first four years “everything was incredible” until she started to take notice of cruel comments on social media around the age of 17.
Sophie didn’t tell her parents about the depths of her resultant negative body issues but when her extreme dieting meant she “stopped having my period for a year”, she started seeing a therapist at the age of 19.
But among all this turmoil her career took off as Game Of Thrones became a bigger and bigger hit.
Meanwhile she won film roles in Barely Lethal alongside Samuel L Jackson, Another Me with Jonathan Rhys Meyers and then secured a role in hte X-Men franchise with Apocalypse in 2016.
The hours for Game Of Thrones were longer as she got older, with the show shooting seven months a year and requiring early starts.
While her friends were able to let their hair down, Sophie chose not to party in public for fear of embarrassing pictures ending up on the internet.
In 2014, she started dating Vamps guitarist James McVey and she was also linked to X-Men co-star Tye Sheridan, though they insist they were just good pals.
She also hinted in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine that she could be interested in women. She said: “Everyone experiments. It’s part of growing up. I love a soul, not a gender.”
But any experimentation ended when she found her Mr Right via Instagram in 2016.
Joe Jonas, who is six years older than Sophie and previously dated Taylor Swift, messaged her on the social media site.
The pair got engaged in October 2017 and last month were hitched in an appropriately showbiz way.
Dressed in white, Sophie said “I do” to Joe at a Las Vegas ceremony in the famous Little White Chapel with an Elvis impersonator officiating.
Her parents were not present, but a second marriage ceremony is planned in France this summer for family to attend.
The newlyweds have moved to the upmarket Nolita neighbourhood in New York and are often seen at glitzy events together.
Sophie reckons the relationship “saved my life” because Joe told her, “I can’t be with you until you love yourself, I can’t see you love me more than you love yourself.”
Taking Joe’s advice on board she is now a much more happy and confident person.
And with a TV and film career going from strength to strength she certainly has a lot to be happy about.
The demanding Game Of Thrones is over and the £160million budget X-Men: Dark Phoenix is supposed to bring the franchise to an end.
In it she plays powerful mutant Jean Grey, struggling with the dangerous side of her personality.
There is a possibility we will see Sophie as Grey again, though, because from now on Disney has control of X-Men.
There is talk of putting the characters in other Marvel films they have rights to. She’s also already filmed her scenes for her next two movies, Broken Soldier with Ray Liotta and a thriller called Heavy.
But for now, Sophie’s deciding what to do next.
She said: “I took a break from work to focus on my mental health because I thought it was important. I am still on that break.”
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With millions in the bank, Sophie has no need to rush back to the office any time soon.
But keeping away from work will be tricky for a woman, who has admitted: “I’m hungry for everything. I need everything.
“Not material-wise, but I need to do these jobs and I have to consume everything.”
- X-Men: Dark Phoenix opens in cinemas on Wednesday.
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