Nicole Beharie talks about her time on Sleepy Hollow
Nicole Beharie on #SleepyHollow: “Sometimes I think that some people I was working with didn’t like that I was unwell but loved by the audience. ...everyone of color on that show was seen as expendable and eventually let go.” Yes. That happened in real time & it was so awful. https://t.co/iNd3MCqKN3
- Mo Ryan (@moryan) June 19, 2020
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For me, six years ago I was on a TV show. My co-star and I both got sick at the same time with the same illness and had different treatments. He was allowed to go on leave for a month and I had to continue working. There was a smokescreen of me getting my own episode titled “Mama.” By the end of that episode, I started to fall apart.
They shut down production for two weeks because I got sick. They sent in lots of doctors, and I had daily checkups to make sure I was actually sick because they had to get the production going. Every doctor said I wasn’t doing well and that I needed to rest. That is not what they wanted to hear.
Months ensued and I got a lawyer. I got my hours down and worked through it. But then I developed an autoimmune condition. I had C. difficile [a bacterium that causes a range of symptoms], which had me on eight different prescription medications.
[..] It took five years to undo those three years. I’ve been putting pieces of myself back together and healing from all the antibiotics and the antiviral steroids as well as the things that happened in that environment.
[..] When I was on that show, I was working so hard to please people and be accepted. I had to be exceptional. I worked myself to the bone 16 to 18 hours a day thinking that it was going to make a difference on my body. We shouldn’t have to die in the process of having a decent life.