Maisie Williams uses "yoga, meditation and isolation" to protect her mental health.
Maisie Williams has revealed yoga and meditation is important to keep her mentally strong
The 'Game of Thrones' actress plays holocaust survivor Catherine Dior - sister of fashion designer Christian Dior - in upcoming drama series 'The New Look' and Maisie has revealed she used all of her tools to stop herself spiralling due to the dark nature of the work.
She told PEOPLE: "There was a lot of preparation to protect my mental health that consisted of a lot of yoga, meditation and even isolation.
"I was confronted with the reality that these things actually happened to a lot of people. I had to acknowledge the darker parts of humanity and history."
Maisie also lost a lot of weight to portray Catherine following her internment in a concentration camp, but the actress insists she made sure she did it safely with the help of experts.
She explained: "I worked with amazing people to make sure that I was being safe. But it felt like the right thing to do to lose some body mass and muscle to depict Catherine having come back from the camp.
"And the easiest, safest and most shocking way to do that was to do what boxers do, like fighters when they're trying to make weight. They drop water weight.
"It had a devastating impact on the way I looked."
Maisie previously explained her gruelling regime was "all-consuming" and led to terrifying nightmares. She told Harper’s Bazaar UK: "I was eating very little, meditating all the time, burning candles and incense in my apartment. I had to be up at 4am to start sweating. The night before, at about 7 or 8pm I was allowed to have something salty and dehydrating – some smoked salmon and a tiny glass of wine.
"Then I had a boiling-hot bath with lots of salts in it. And I sort of levitated to bed and slept for maybe three hours, and woke up and had a handful of nuts.
"I wouldn't be able to sleep through the night at this point. I kept waking up and feeling like a marble inside a bottle, rattling around ... "
Maisie added the little sleep she got was ruined by bad dreams: "[It was] a lot of feeling restricted, almost like sleep paralysis, dreams of being trapped and attacked, and horrible visions of men in uniform."
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