Lana Condor Opened Up About Her Fragile Mental Health After Filming ‘To All the Boys’

Lana Condor
Lana Condor
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic, Getty Images

February 12th marks the beginning of the end for the To All the Boys I've Loved Before Netflix trilogy starring Lana Condor and Noah Centineo as everyone's favorite fake-couple-turned-real-relationship. In a February 2nd interview with Self magazine, Condor says she had just as hard a time saying goodbye to her character Lara Jean because playing Lara Jean has opened the door to so many other opportunities—in fact, maybe too many opportunities.

"I was just saying yes to everything because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you want to capitalize on it, and you want to feel like you're fully embracing everything," Condor told Self, noting that the success of the first To All the Boys film, which is based on the book series by Jenny Han, launched her into the spotlight seemingly overnight. "[The first movie] was received way better than I had ever imagined in my wildest dreams. It changed much of my life very quickly," she said.

When the first To All the Boys movie hit Netflix, Condor was already working on her next project—the dark and brooding television series Deadly Class—which meant she was promoting To All the Boys on the weekends and shooting Deadly Class during the week.

"I've never felt more horrible mentally," Condor continued. "I was so burned out...I would go home at night and I couldn't speak. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I would shake going to bed and shake waking up because it was just so much stimulation."

But for a long time, Condor suffered alone, not wanting to worry her friends, family, and fans. It wasn't until she reached a boiling point that she and those who cared about her realized she needed help.

"I was on the phone with my team and I had this moment where I just was in tears, telling them that I don't feel okay. And they were all shocked because I wasn't open about my feelings," she told Self. "No one knew. When I had that conversation with them, it was like a new beginning."

"Now I know the power of sharing that," Condor continued, noting that her parents are "so supportive." She said, "We've had conversations about 'Lana, you need to stop. You're clearly unhappy'…'Okay, let's figure out the root of that.' My parents have been a great sounding board."

"I'm realizing now, particularly this year, that there's a lot of strength in showing people that everything is not always daisies every single minute of every single day," she said, later adding, "I'm talking about my mental health and my heart. And that's something that I completely threw away for the sake of others."

Once Condor opened up about how she was feeling with her team, "it was a huge change," she admitted. "They really have helped me navigate the industry now in a much more healthy way, where I feel like I can do what I love and also be the person that I want to be for myself."