On October 13th, the filmmaker and actor Mark Duplass posted a photo of himself on Instagram—what looked like a red-carpet closeup, with a bow tie on his neck and a forced smile on his face. “I have been struggling with anxiety and depression for most of my life,” Duplass wrote in the caption. “When I see pictures of myself like this one, I can see the fear and sadness behind the smile. Even at my most ‘happy’ times. But at times like these, when the world is so deeply terrifying and saddening, it’s a struggle just to stay on my feet and keep from crashing.” Supportive comments poured in, from the likes of Glenn Close, Carson Daly, Marisa Tomei, Sterling K. Brown, Rosie O’Donnell, and Jennifer Aniston—Duplass’s co-star on “The Morning Show”—as well as thousands of non-famous followers moved by his uncommon rawness. In the following weeks, Duplass posted apprehensive selfies, with real-time updates on his depressive episode. He shared musicians whose work had helped him “through the harder times” (the Weather Station, Phoebe Bridgers) and his “tools” for getting back on track (sleep, exercise). On November 11th, he wrote, “Things are turning for me and I’m actually doing really well.”
Duplass, who is forty-seven, is probably best known as one half of the Duplass brothers. Starting in the two-thousands, he and his older brother Jay made a series of low-budget films, including “The Puffy Chair” (2005), “Baghead” (2008), and “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” (2011), that were central to the “mumblecore” movement of post-9/11 slacker cinema. Mark also starred on the brothers’ HBO show “Togetherness” and on the sitcom “The League.” On “The Morning Show,” he plays the beleaguered right hand to Aniston’s news diva. In many of his roles, he has an amiable-loser vibe, with a sprinkling of Gen X loathing. But his upward trajectory as indie darling and sardonic character actor has a shadow time line: the undulating mental-health struggle that has plagued him since childhood. At some point, he nicknamed it “the Woog.”
Duplass’s posts come at a moment when more celebrities, from Selena Gomez to Jonah Hill, are being open about their mental-health issues. When I spoke to Duplass recently, over Zoom, he wore a black hoodie, his salt-and-pepper hair darkened for a role. He sat in front of a painted mountainscape, in a small office unit in the back yard of his home, in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife (and sometimes co-star), Katie Aselton, and their two daughters. “I was, honestly, just selfishly starting to share things,” he said, of his intimate series of posts. “I was surprised at the reaction I got from it, because I think I do live in a little bit of a bubble, where it’s just a bunch of sensitive men that I’m friends with, sharing our feelings. Then when you hear people say, ‘Wow, you’re destigmatizing this,’ it’s really good to hear that.” Our conversation has been edited and condensed.
Let’s start with your post from October 13th, with the picture of you in a black tie. You wrote about the disconnect between what we see and how you were actually feeling. What led you to make that post?
The post was not a heavily considered moment in my life. It was more of a knee-jerk reaction. There’s this part of me that really wants to be known and to be seen for exactly who I am, and the more widely known my public image becomes there’s something small inside of me that wants to push back. With “The Morning Show” in particular, it’s, like, “Oh, my God, you’re with all these fabulous movie stars!” That’s what led to picking that picture of me in the tuxedo. It just doesn’t feel truthful, you know?
Were you also going through a phase of heightened depression?
Yeah. I had been coming off a hot streak of solid, well-balanced mental and physical health. I was, dare I say, getting to that point where you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. COVID was difficult for so many of us. I was able to find the silver lining by being so closely knit with my family. I was exercising consistently. I wasn’t having to do as much social stuff, so that part of my anxiety was at bay. I was writing in my little office. And then I found myself, as we reëntered real life, oddly missing my little monk-like life. At the same time, I was watching both of my daughters, who are eleven and fifteen, head back to school, all the trials and tribulations of that life, feeling the heaviness of that. I was definitely feeling the heaviness in the world, in particular with Israel and Hamas and Palestine. And, when that happens to me, I immediately activate this set of skills that I have developed over the past roughly eighteen years.
Right, you wrote about your “systems” or “tools.” Can you tell me what they are?
It’s not rocket science. Getting eight to nine hours of sleep is critical, and setting myself up for that sleep by making sure I’m not overly stimulated before bedtime. Getting hard-core exercise is the most important part—driving myself to the brink of oxygen debt on an elliptical machine to jack my endorphins up to battle against everything that’s coming. And there are times when you question that: If I’m having to do this, am I running from something? I don’t have the answer to that. I have a great relationship with my therapist. I always recommend people do this with their therapist, where I say, “I will ask you to see me on short notice only if it’s really, really important, and for that exchange I will offer you the ability to bump me at any time if someone else in your practice really, really needs you.” I call it wartime and peacetime. So I pull one of my get-out-of-jail-free cards and go see my therapist really quickly.
And then it’s a couple of other things. But what happened to me this time around, which was rough, is that I had done a good job getting all my systems in place, and it still wasn’t getting me above the waterline. That also prompted me to do this post, because I realized, like, I’ve got everything going for me, and I still couldn’t fuckin’ beat it back. And that started to bring in this level of despair and fear that is a little bit irrational.
This reminds me of when you have insomnia, and you start to obsess over the insomnia itself, and it keeps you up longer.
That’s right. You become afraid of the fear. If I’m being totally honest, partly it was a little cry for help. At the same time, I was thinking, Everyone’s watching me on “The Morning Show,” going, “Oh, my God, this guy’s got the career of his life!” And, if I’m suffering from this and working my ass off and still not able to transcend, how many people must be dealing with this right now? I had that hunch, and I sent out that first post, and there was just a flood of people coming back. And I was, like, Oh, shit, this is something.