Miranda Hart reveals how she ‘lost her smile’ as she tells of her dark and sad moments — after making millions of Call The Midwife and Annie fans laugh
The comic insists she is happy and well at the moment
SHE puts smiles on the faces of millions of people but Miranda Hart has revealed that the one person she struggles to make happy is herself.
The comedian has told how this time last year, she was dogged by overwhelming sadness, self-pity and feelings of isolation so severe that she struggled to leave her bed.
She wrote in a magazine: “When a low mood sinks in, you find yourself almost revelling in the awful world news and feeling self-pityingly about the tiniest things.
“I went into a fury simply because I couldn’t find a Biro.
“It’s easy to spiral into seeing just the negative around us and then simply not smiling.
“I think we all have days when we just want to hole up, cancel friends and cocoon in a duvet.”
And she added: “I found nothing could prompt an upward turn to my mouth — not even a cheeky dollop of ice cream with my favourite comedy.”
Around the same time, the 44-year- old actress pulled out of a string of commitments including a reprise of her role in Call The Midwife, a BBC remake of Up Pompeii and plans to host The Royal Variety Performance.
Miranda now admits that she was battling dramatically low moods as she “succumbed to that old back-to-school feeling”.
The star, who has talked extensively about earlier struggles with anxiety and agoraphobia, also told how the experience gave her an insight into how much unseen suffering goes on.
She wrote in You magazine: “In this glum state, it struck me how there were so many people in the world for whom there is genuinely very little, if anything, to smile about.
“And they are often the ones who keep doing so, who put on a brave face, staying cheery despite everything.”
It was while battling these blues that an idea came to her for a children’s book about an 11-year-old called Chloe “who had lost her smile and was desperate to get it back”.
Miranda added: “This was a story from the heart.”
The book, called The Girl With The Lost Smile, is published next month.
Despite coming out the other side of her gloom, she has been beset with health niggles this year.
They have included a throat infection which saw her pull out of playing Miss Hannigan in West End musical Annie for a week last month.
There also continues to be no sign of another series of her sitcom Miranda or her hosting a remake of The Generation Game, which the BBC said was on hold in August 2015 despite a successful pilot being filmed just before Christmas 2014.
Meanwhile, earlier this year The Sun had revealed how Miranda was suffering from a “mystery illness” that left her unable to play her beloved tennis.
It came after she told a comedy audience: “I don’t feel myself at the moment because I was ill last year and I wasn’t able to exercise.”
Yet this is not the first time the single star has confronted extreme unhappiness.
Brought up in a family of aristocratic background, she came from a long line of colonial rulers and naval leaders, including her own dad Captain David Hart Dyke, now 78.
When Miranda was just nine years old, her father was the commanding officer of HMS Coventry when it was sunk by Argentinian attack jets in the Falklands War.
Nineteen members of the crew were killed.
Hart Dyke later recalled of the scene: “It was black, with people on fire.”
He himself came back home to his family — Miranda; her sister Alice, three years her junior; and mum Dee — with burns on his face from the battle.
Miranda has recalled: “That was a very difficult time. I remember when his ship sank and coming home from school and a whole mass of news reporters being outside, but Mum hadn’t told us what had happened.”
In her early 20s Miranda was forced to move back in with her parents when she was struck down by anxiety and agoraphobia after graduating with a degree in political science from Bristol University.
The actress has said: “I thought the world was a bit scary. A sort of anxiety runs in the family.
"Some people get depressed for six months then pull themselves together. I just hid in a room in the house and didn’t really go out. It was my blip.”
Miranda was prescribed anti-depressants and piled on 5st, explaining: “I ballooned in size in my mid-twenties. I was tall and big and I found that difficult.”
She added: “I think I’ll always be a slightly anxious person.
“It’s just bad genes — bad luck, really. I’ll always have to force myself to see the positive, because I’m wired badly, I’d say.
“I’m just naturally a bit under, a bit depressed.”
Since these candid revelations, Miranda has downplayed her experience, preferring to dismiss it as time when she was merely “sitting around in my pants feeling a bit sorry for myself.”
But her twenties, towering over most of her friends at 6ft 1in, were not an easy time.
She worked as a PA and has recalled: “I was very worried about not being attractive to men, of not feeling like your stereo-typical girl.
“It took me a lot longer to feel comfortable in my body, and in myself, than others.”
Miranda also blames her single sex education at £36,300-a-year boarding school Downe House in Berkshire for making her self-conscious around men.
She said: “I was very shy until my mid-20s, and when I went to university it was definitely like meeting a new species of people. I was very, very nervous.”
Miranda finally gave up temping as a PA in 2005, and her career quickly took off.
But she later revealed that the early days of her success were overshadowed by her heart being broken when a long-term relationship ended in 2007.
Last year she said she credited her dog, shih tzu/bichon frise cross Peggy, with healing her.
She said: “I was lonely, isolated, depressed and uncertain I could ever love or be loved again. I was grateful to have something to cuddle.
“And I thought perhaps this dog is going to turn it all around. I realised it’s better to be single than to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t give kind, loving and trusting approval.
“I felt my heartbreak begin to recede. I had a being who loved me. It didn’t matter that it was just a dog.”
Yesterday Miranda insisted that she is happy and well, saying: “I’m on holiday at the moment and no, I’ve never had any problems with depression, thank God.”
Let’s hope she’s right and that all our smiles will be back soon.
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BIG DREAMS TO STARDOM
1998: Aged 26, Miranda decides she wants to become a comedian, although she keeps working as a PA.
2001: Makes her TV comedy debut with a number of minor roles in sketch show Smack The Pony.
2004: Small role in Absolutely Fabulous.
2005: Wins a tiny part in The Vicar Of Dibley alongside Dawn French, playing a speed-dating host. Cast in recurring role in cult sitcom Nighty Night.
2006: Appears with Jack Dee in his sitcom Lead Balloon.
2006-2009: Stars with Lee Mack in three series of sitcom Not Going Out as clumsy cleaner Barbara.
2007: Appears in her first film, Magicians, with David Mitchell and Robert Webb.
2008: Radio comedy Miranda Hart’s Joke Shop broadcasts on Radio 2.
2009-2015: The comedy show graduates to BBC2 where it is renamed Miranda and wins rave reviews and huge ratings.
2012-2015: Plays Chummy in BBC1’s Call The Midwife, winning acclaim in her first dramatic role.
2012: Releases first book Is It Just Me?
2015: Stars alongside Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham and Jude Law in director Paul Feig’s hit US movie comedy Spy.
2016: Pulls out of reprising her role as Chummy on Call The Midwife and of hosting The Royal Variety Performance.
2017: Stars as Miss Hannigan in musical Annie in the West End but takes a week off in August because of a throat infection.
2018: Movie The Nutcracker And The Four Realms, in which she stars with Keira Knightley and Helen Mirren, due to open.