‘I thought I was the saviour of the planet’: how Game of Thrones’ Hannah Murray found a wellness cult – and lost her mind

She landed a role in hit TV show Skins at 17 and went on to star in the fantasy epic. Then she was drawn towards a mysterious spiritual community. How did she end up being sectioned? ‘This is a test. A horrible test’: read an extract from Hannah Murray’s memoir At least once a week, Hannah Murray has this one overpowering thought: “Thank God I don’t act any more.” She might be climbing her stairs, mug in hand, or at her desk opening her computer, she might be taking a casserole from the oven, or browsing the high street in the East Anglian town where she now lives. The thought will arrive along with what she describes as a sort of total bodily relief. She tries to hold on to this “I’m not an actor any more” feeling because it’s accompanied, she says, by “a real surge of joy”. It’s not just because she doesn’t have to strip for the camera any more, although there was plenty of that, starting with Cassie, whom she played aged 17 in the E4 hit show Skins, mostly in underwear. And it’s not because she doesn’t have to cope with the relentless focus on her weight, though there was plenty of that too, accompanied by questions from journalists: was she