Michael Coel is getting big acclaim for her very personal new series “I May Destroy You”.
The British actress and TV creator is on the cover of the new issue of GQ Hype, and in it she opens up about how she turned her trauma into great television.
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Coel stars in the series as Arabella, a young woman rebuilding her life after having her drink spiked while having a night out with friends in London.
“In many ways, there is no separation between Arabella and I,” she says of her character, “but in other ways, of course there is, because she exists on that screen and I’m here. There are many things that feel very similar, but, also, I’ve written a fictional story.”
Talking about her own healing process, she adds, “You have to learn to have power over the thing instead of it having power of you. Now, I try to keep things in my life like meditation. I started getting into yoga quite a lot, so that was really helpful. Spending time with my friends and writing the show was really helpful.”
Coel also talks about the impact the TV and film industry has on people with mental health issues.
“I think that the privilege that I have in this situation is that I have essentially tried to subconsciously make myself indispensable, so I’ll star in the thing, I’ll write the thing, I’ll co-direct the thing, I’ll executive produce the thing,” she says. “I’ll write every single word of it, which means it means that it would be very hard to drive me out.”
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As for experiencing racism in the U.K., Coel says, “I have so many that it brings me to tears to think about, so I don’t want to share them, because they’re painful. I also realize that while being very aware of the direct, aggressive forms of racial abuse, racial violence and even police questioning that I’ve had in my life with no criminal record – I’ve had great encounters with the police and bad encounters – when I think about the racial abuse that I experienced over the course of my life, I’m also understanding that everybody is deeply traumatized.”
Read the full feature online at GQ Hype.
