Will Poulter Says He 'Really Struggled' with His Mental Health During the Pandemic

Will Poulter is opening up about his mental health struggles throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Dopesick star, 28, shared during an interview with E! this week that the past two years had taken a toll on him.

"To be completely candid with you, I really struggled with my mental health like many people did throughout the pandemic," he said, adding that his role in the Hulu series was also a heavy weight to carry.

However, he said that, due to the nature of the show, the cast and crew were "very empathetic" toward him.

"I'm very grateful to them for that," he shared with E!.

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Once he was finished filming, Poulter said he took some time to visit family and begin focusing again on his mental and physical health.

"I am a big proponent of physical exercise and the natural endorphins that come from doing that as a means of improving your mental health," he added.

Dopesick is an eight-episode miniseries, created by Danny Strong and based on writer Beth Macy's 2018 book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America.

The story "takes viewers to the epicenter of America's struggle with opioid addiction, from the boardrooms of Big Pharma to a distressed Virginia mining community to the hallways of the DEA," according to Hulu.

Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard, Kaitlyn Dever, Rosario Dawson Michael Stuhlbarg, and John Hoogenakker are also in the cast. The series' guest stars include Phillipa Soo and Jake McDorman.

During Hulu's TCA panel in August, several of the show's stars reflected on the impact being part of the series had on them.

Dawson, 42, noted that she's had "family members and people in the community who I've seen suffer and whose lives have generationally been impacted now from opioid addiction."

She added that she was struck by "the ease with which it was just brought into their lives and how destructive it was."

"I think what Rosario said, the way she expressed it was perfect because that maybe was a shocker to me, the ease with which it became an epidemic, kind of knocked me out, you know, it seems almost too simple, that this happened this way," Keaton, 69, added.

He continued, "I'm reading and thinking, 'Well, are we really just too on the head?' and then you have to read Beth Macy's book and start to do any kind of research than you realize this is not exaggerated in the slightest, but that's the expression — that's the thing for me, the ease with which all this happened was sickening."

If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please contact the SAMHSA substance abuse helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.