Actress Tuppence Middleton attributes her anxiety over hugging a co-star to her OCD

Since rehearsals for her latest play began, actress Tuppence Middleton says she has “woken up wide awake in the middle of the night.”

The 36-year-old actress with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) blames “anxiety” for her condition.

Middleton plays Elizabeth Taylor in The Motive and the Cue, opposite Johnny Flynn as her spouse Richard Burton, in her new play.

The actress’s OCD makes her worry about petting her co-star.

“Johnny and I have to kiss in this play, and one of my obsessions is being emetophobic,” Middleton explains to BBC News.

“So, I am troubled by the thought: ‘What if Johnny has norovirus?’”

Middleton was diagnosed with OCD when she was young and spoke to the BBC about the “internal” and “hidden” impact it has on her career.

The beginning of rehearsals for The Motive and the Cue was particularly difficult.

She explains,

“On the first day, when you meet everyone and everyone shakes hands, I make a mental note of who I shook hands with and then I have to remember to wash my hands while I talk to people.”

Middleton told One to One on BBC Sounds in 2021 that, in addition to an intense fear of vomiting and a worry about cleanliness and contamination, her OCD manifests itself in obsessive mental counting and compulsive checking behaviors.

Now he says,

“As you get older and get used to it, you find ways to cope.”

What exactly is OCD?

More than 500,000 people in the UK suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. As with many other medical conditions, OCD can worsen if left untreated and sufferers experience apprehensive and intrusive thoughts.

Due to feelings and thoughts of guilt, humiliation or shame, OCD sufferers may hide their symptoms, making their diagnosis difficult.

There are a number of common thoughts and behaviors that a person with an anxiety disorder may experience and often recognize as irrational. Examples include:

• a fear of disorder or contamination
• Intense fear of causing harm to oneself or others.
• intrusive or disturbing thoughts or images
• repetitive ritualistic behavior

Tuppence Middleton has amassed an extensive resume in film and television, particularly in science fiction, such as Black Mirror and Sense8, and period dramas, including the Downton Abbey films and War & Peace. She recently appeared in the ITV drama Our House.

However, The Motive and the Cue is his first major stage role. She admits it is “very daunting” to play Elizabeth Taylor, an actress whose personal dramas were as well-known as her professional career. Taylor was married eight times and led a scandalous, alcoholic and addicted existence in the public eye.

Taylor passed away in 2011 at the age of 79.

Elizabeth and Burton are newlyweds in the film The Motive and the Cue, directed by Sam Mendes and written by Jack Thorne, who also wrote Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The couple met on the set of Cleopatra and began a fiery relationship despite being married to other people.

Long before Brangelina, Bennifer or Kimye, they were the first “celebrity couple” and caused a sensation wherever they traveled.

Nearly 60 years later, Middleton says younger generations find it difficult to understand “how famous they were.”

“They were like exotic animals in the sense that people wanted to be close to them,” he explains.

The play takes place in 1964, when both Burton and Gielgud were at the peak of their fame and when Burton played Hamlet in an experimental Broadway production directed by Gielgud.

“Each night of the race,” Middleton explains, “thousands of people lined the street in front of the theater and the roads were blocked.”

This would never happen today because celebrity no longer has the same appeal.

The Motive and the Cue runs from 20 April to 15 July at the National Theatre: Lyttelton.