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Ryan Phillippe’s battle with depression

Ryan Phillippe speaks about his long battle with depression. The Secrets and Lies actor hopes he doesn't pass on this personality trait to his children.
Ryan Phillippe

Reese Witherspoon has admitted her divorce from actor Ryan Phillippe led to a tough few years of her “trying to feel better”. But her ex may not have emerged unscathed either, revealing his battle with depression. Discussing his role in the new miniseries Secrets and Lies, a remake of the Australian drama starring Kiwi Martin Henderson, Ryan (40) revealed he could relate to his tormented character Ben – a man accused of murdering a boy –  because he feels “quietly tortured at times”.

“Depression has been a huge obstacle for me ever since I was a child,” he explains. “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’s not all darkness in his life, however. He says he uses his sadness to develop a quirky humour. “I’m way funnier than people know me to be. And it’s a dark humour… I think that’s where, if you do carry any of that sadness or depression, your humour does tend to be a little darker than most people.”

Ryan met Reese Witherspoon at her 21st birthday party. She went on to win a the Best Actress Oscar for Walk the Line.

But he worries he has passed his personality traits onto his children – he and Reese have Ava (15) and Deacon (11), and he also has a daughter Kai (3) with his ex, Pitch Perfect’s Alexis Knapp.

In the meantime, Ryan and Reese (38) are doting co-parents to their two children. They recently took them on a trip down memory lane to where their mum and dad’s romance famously unfolded on screen. The couple met at Reese’s 21st birthday in 1997, where she reportedly told him, “I think you’re my birthday present.” A year later, they were engaged, and the following year they starred in teen drama Cruel Intentions.

“A few months ago, I’d come to New York to do some press and Reese was coming to do some too, so she brought the kids. There was this cool moment when we took the kids for a walk in Central Park, the same place we shot Cruel Intentions. We were like, ‘This is where Mom and I did this scene’ and the kids were like, ‘Really?’… It was a sweet, cool thing,” Ryan recalls.

The pair split in 2006 after rumours that Ryan had cheated with his Stop-Loss co-star Abbie Cornish. In 2011, Reese went on to marry Jim Toth, with whom she has a son Tennessee (2). “It’s going well,” Ryan says of their friendship. “She’s happy and remarried, and our kids are incredible. I’m proud of the way we’ve handled it and who our little people are.”

Ryan is a devoted dad to son Deacon and daughter Ava, his children with Reese.

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