Not enough shut-eye. Kim Cattrall revealed in a new interview that her battle with chronic insomnia had a crippling effect on her career and forced her to drop out of a London play.
“I didn’t understand the debilitating consequence of having no sleep. It becomes a tsunami. I was in a void,” Cattrall, 59, told the latest issue of Radio Times, explaining why she could no longer play the titular role in Penelope Skinner’s production of Linda in 2015. “I didn’t want to let down the audience, the theatre, playwright or the actors.”
When the single Sex and the City alum announced that she could no longer commit to portraying Linda — a working woman who seeks revenge after her office affair comes to light — she was met with harsh backlash. However, Cattrall never allowed her critics to bother her.
“I have my own voice on social media, where I can say: ‘If you’re interested in what really happened, the whole story is more complex than being disease of the week,’ than someone saying, ‘I have this battle,’” she shared.
The Liverpool native then went on to recount her troubling return to the United States after saying goodbye to her starring role on the London stage.
“Coming back to the U.S., I hadn’t slept for 48 hours and had to wait six hours to get my 18-year-old cat through customs,” she said. “When the customers officer said: ‘So how much is your cat worth?’ I couldn’t stop laughing hysterically.”
To cope with her problematic sleeping habits, Cattrall tried cognitive behavior therapy. “It’s like putting on a pair of sneakers and going into your past to get a new perspective,” she noted of her treatment. “And I was gentle with myself. So last Christmas wasn’t about friends and relations; it was a monastic experience of trying to delve.”
Back in April, the actress told the U.K.’s Radio 4 Woman’s Hour that being an insomniac started to worry her because she found it hard to “hold on to ideas, thoughts, even tasks.”
