Tom Holland And Dwayne Johnson Open Up About Their Mental Health Struggles

Given the stress and hyperfocus many celebrities are placed under and their ability to share information to a large audience, it is pleasing to hear more and more of them sharing their own struggles with mental health (Deadline). This includes such notable names as Tom Holland and Dwayne Johnson.

Unfortunately, Holland is no stranger to these internal battles. In August 2022, the actor announced that he was taking break from social media due to potentially being triggered by negative comments about him online. Additionally, in an interview with EW for his new Apple TV+ show, The Crowded Room, he stated: “I’m no stranger to the physical aspects of the job doing the whole action-movie thing… But the mental aspect, it really beat me up and it took a long time for me to recover afterwards, to sort of get back to reality.”

Another prominent actor who has shared his own experiences is Dwayne Johnson. In an interview with The Pivot, Johnson expressed his first experience with depression occurred when he got a shoulder injury, which put a stop to his football career. He expressed: “[I] didn’t want to go to school… I was ready to leave. I left school. I didn’t take any midterms and I just left. But the interesting thing, at that time, is I just didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what mental health was. I didn’t know what depression was. I just knew I didn’t want to be there. Wasn’t going to any of the team meetings. Wasn’t participating in anything.” Johnson also noted that the second time he experienced depression, still without knowing what the illness was, was when he was going through his divorce.

Notably, Johnson emphasizes the toll mental health can have on men specifically: “As men, we didn’t talk about it. We just kept our head down and worked thru it. Not healthy but it’s all we knew.” Adding to this idea, he told his audience: “If you’re going through your own version of mental wellness turning into mental hell-ness, the most important thing you can do is talk to somebody. It can’t be fixed if you keep that pain inside. Having the courage to talk to someone is your superpower. I lost two friends to suicide. Talk to someone. Despite how you may feel, you’re never alone.”