Lynn Collins didn't have to dig too deep to find her alcoholic character in new movie Angel's Crest - just a few years ago she was one.
The actress has opened up about her battle with booze while promoting the new movie, in which she plays a drunk mum searching for her lost son.
And she tells WENN it was difficult to play an alcoholic on screen after four years of sobriety.
She explains, "I myself am an alcoholic, in the programme and I go to meetings. I've been sober for four years, so when I approached this character it was very much a conscious release of the shadow aspect of myself.
"This role started working on my issues so I was really quite reclusive during this experience. Most of the scenes were like, 'Alright, forgive yourself for whatever you did that's similar to this.' Sharing that part of myself to help heal others was a big force in my preparation.
"My struggle was a pretty long struggle. There were some years there where drugs and alcohol took over my life and I was unable to function. To play a character that was on that downward spiral to that place was really easy and really hard at the same time.
"When I watched the movie for the first time I was mortified to see myself drinking even though I had cleaned up by the time we started shooting, so I wasn't actually drinking in the film. It was the muscle memory of what it was like to obliterate an emotion, an anxiety, a feeling.
"Me and my therapist had a good old time that week! When I was done with this movie it felt like I had an ice armor on me that took a week and a half to thaw."
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