Ryan Phillippe on depression: I’m just innately kind of a sad person

Secrets and Lies star Ryan Phillipe opened up to Elle.com about his lifelong struggle with depression. He says his emotional pain helps him to connect to his character on the ABC show because he’s “quietly tortured at times.”

“You know, depression has been a huge obstacle for me ever since I was a child,” he told the site. “As you get older I think it decreases some, but I’m just innately kind of a sad person. I’m empathetic, and I take on the feelings of others and transpose myself into the position of others.”

“It can ruin your f**king life,” he said about the mental illness, which affects more than 10% of the adult population. “I’d prefer to suffer through the sadness than to be a complete moron with no feelings [though].”

“I’m way funnier than people know me to be,” he noted. “And it’s a dark humor, like a gallows humor. I think that’s where, if you do carry any of that sadness or depression, your humor does tend to be a little darker than most people.”