David Harewood: The Chilling Story Of How A Hollywood Star Lost His Mind | E185

I did everything that voice told me to do that night. Had that voice had told me to jump off Thames Bridge, I would've done it. Please welcome David Harewood. (applause) Propelled to super stardom in hit US drama, Homeland. One of our most influential voices on race and mental health.

I remember reading about a moment where you come home, you find your father's typewriter with one word written on the typewriter.

Mm. It just said, "Illness." And I didn't quite know what it was, but I knew something was off. I hadn't seen Dad for a while. And then one morning I got up and my mum said, "Don't go into the kitchen," and go straight to school out the front door. That night, that's when my mum told me that Dad had been... (music stops)

David Harewood was the first Black actor to play this part.

The hostility that I was met with as a young, Black actor was ferocious. Newspapers, reviews just dismissing me. "He looks more like Mike Tyson than Romeo. What's he doing on the stage?" So I really did feel like I was an anomaly. The whole thing, the stress, the smoke, the overthinking, just ended up making me spiral. That's what led to me just falling into psychosis. I was lying in bed and I just heard this voice in my head. He said he was Martin Luther King. "Even though I'm speaking to you from beyond the grave, I need you to close the gap between good and evil. So you're gonna sacrifice yourself tonight and you're gonna be an angel." And that was the night I was eventually sectioned. I just remember lots of flashing lights and then being in the back of a police wagon. If that order continued, I'm not even sure I would be here today.

Before this episode begins, I just want to say a huge thank you to all of our new subscribers. 74% of you that watch this channel didn't subscribe before, and we're now down to about 71%. So, that helps us in a number of ways that are quite hard to explain, but simply, the bigger the channel gets, the bigger the guests get. So if you haven't yet subscribed to The Diary of a CEO, if I could have any favors from you, if you've ever watched this show and enjoyed it, it's just to, to please hit the subscribe button. Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (upbeat music) David, what do I have to understand about your very earliest years to understand the man you are, the perspective you have, and the work you do today? What is the most important context?

Well, that's an interesting question. What do I need to kn- what do you need to know about me then? Um, that I was probably naive, open, innocent, uh, and probably more, um... probably more conflicted than I thought I was. I, I was a vessel, and into that vessel was just been poured so much, I'll say false information, wrong information, that, um, at some point it had to smash, break. I grew up at a time when there weren't many Black people on television, and there weren't many Black images, that, on television or anywhere. And I think, I think that is s- I think that seriously... I wouldn't say put me at a disadvantage, but I, I, I grew, I grew up with a false sense of myself, and that, that false, false picture, uh, has only recently emerged. Does that make sense?