(From left) Ben Miller Polly Walker, Bessie Carter, Harriet Cains, Luke Newton and Ruby Barker in 'Bridgerton'. Photo: Handout
Bridgerton actor Ruby Barker says shooting the Netflix series caused her mental health to deteriorate, leading to two psychotic breaks.
The actor, who starred as Lady Marina Crane in Netflix's wildly successful Regency-era romance series, called out the streamer and Shondaland for their lack of support. Barker said that during the filming, she was "deteriorating". And a week after shooting the first season of the show, she was hospitalised, she said, but it was "really, really covered up and kept on the down-low because the show was going to be coming out."
Barker's Lady Crane was a major character in the first season of the show — a distant cousin of the Featheringtons who cunningly wins the affection of Colin Bridgerton with the hope that a quick engagement will hide a pregnancy from a former paramour and allow her to enter society with her honour intact. Lady Crane also appears in the second season of the acclaimed high-society series.
Barker said she suffered her first psychotic break just after wrapping the first season in 2019, and the second one in 2022. The dire predicament of her character, she said, affected her personally.
"It was a really tormenting place for me to be because my character was very alienated, very ostracised, on her own — under these horrible circumstances," Barker said during an appearance on Oxford University's The LOAF Podcast, which aired Saturday.
"Not a single person from Netflix, not a single person from Shondaland, since I have had two psychotic breaks from that show, have even contacted me or even emailed me to ask me if I'm OK or if I would benefit from any sort of aftercare or support," Barker continued. Nobody.
In addition to filming the series, the media obligations to promote the series were overwhelming for the actor. "In the run-up to the show coming out, I was just coming out from hospital, my Instagram following was going up, I had all these engagements to do. My life was changing drastically overnight and yet there was still no support and there still hasn't been any support all that time. So I was trying really, really hard to act like, 'This is fine. This is OK, I'm OK, I can work.'
"It's almost like I had this kind of metaphorical invisible gun to my head... to sell this show, because this show's bubbly and fun and all of these things," she continued. "I don't want to come out and poopoo on that. Because then I might never work again."
Barker publicly addressed her hospitalisation in May 2022. She shared a since-expired video on Instagram from the hospital where she'd been receiving treatment and told her followers that she'd been "really unwell for a really long time." She explained, "I just want to be honest with everybody, I have been struggling. So, I'm in the hospital at the minute, I'm gonna get discharged soon and hopefully get to continue with my life and I'm gonna take a little bit of a break from myself."
The actor continued: "I'm at a point where I have a diagnosis, and I will talk to you about that at another time. But I have a diagnosis, and I am relinquishing myself and forgiving myself and drawing a line in the sand. I can't carry on the way that I've been carrying on. I need to change. So, that's what I'm trying to do."
At the time, she thanked both Netflix and Shonda Rhimes, the executive producer of Bridgerton, "for giving me an opportunity, for saving me," but on Saturday's episode of The LOAF Podcast, she said she was happy to talk about what really happened.
Netflix and Shondaland did not immediately respond to the L.A. Times' request for comment. – Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service
