Vanessa Kirby Shares the Mental Health Lesson That Transformed Her Inner Voice

Princess Margaret once said in Netflix’s The Crown that “I know I appear strong, but I’m not.” She and the actress playing her, Vanessa Kirby, would both relate strongly to Lancôme’s new “I’m Fine” campaign, which hopes to encourage women to check in more with themselves. It was developed with the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) and HealthyWomen, a nonprofit with the mission to empower women to make decisions about health care. Kirby, a face of the brand, Christy Turlington, and Zoë Saldaña are each sharing personal testimonial videos about the cause. ELLE talked to Kirby about the mental health lesson that changed everything for her, the character whose mindset stuck with her, and the inner workings of Princess Margaret.

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What does mental health mean to you?

I personally gauge mental health in how I speak to myself. We’re with our thoughts most of the time and much less than when we speak to people, especially in the middle of the night, just before we go to bed, and first thing in the morning—we’re with ourselves. How healthy our relationship to self is, and how compassionate it is, is how I’ve come to view it.

Has it been a journey for you? How has it changed?

I’ve been a deeply sensitive person my whole life. It’s probably why I explore feelings in work and feel the need to inhabit them, to try and work out what it all is, as a human. A big shift in my life happened when I gained awareness that my inner voice is not always me, it’s thoughts. Thoughts can be based on conditioning, childhood, or thousands of small internalized belief systems. It’s been a journey of dismantling those thoughts that actually aren’t aligned with what I actually feel and believe, and noticing the difference between them—rather than thinking those thoughts are me, my identity, and who I am.

I remember someone describing it like: Imagine a sky and the thoughts are the clouds, and they pass by. The sky is the constant. Depending on the weather, there could be a big swirl of clouds, or there could just be one. If you can create a detachment between your thoughts and the feelings that are created by those thoughts, it’s a loving detachment—that started to change me. It’s easy to judge those thoughts and go, Why am I saying that? Instead, you can go, I’m just going to observe with love and see what it’s doing right now.

How do you feel like your work as an actor has played into your understanding of mental health and thoughts versus feelings?

When I was young, I was just exploring acting and remember how happy it made me. I realized that it is the art of literally thinking someone’s thoughts. If you think their thoughts, then the behavior comes from that, rather than acting the behavior. I found it such an interesting challenge to be asked to think and imagine what someone believes in a different time period, situation, or relationship.

I’ve explored different corners of my own psyche by imagining someone else’s life and how that would have shaped them. I mean, being in the royal family couldn’t be further from me, for instance, for my role as Princess Margaret in The Crown. I had no touchpoint for what on earth that would be like, but I got to imagine how someone’s psyche could be shaped by having an older sister chosen as the more important one and what that would do to your self-worth. I imagine you’d oscillate between grandiosity, needing to be special, feeling totally not special at all, and having to find your place in the world when society tells you exactly where you belong. It’s been such a gift of my life to be able to just imagine different women’s lives.

This campaign is called “I’m Fine.” Many of us have said that before without really meaning it. Why does this campaign resonate with you?

It means so much to me, and it is such an honor to start working with Lancôme. My mum has a long history with the brand, and she’s used it for a really long time. There is a retreat called the Hoffman Process, and one of the things that isn’t allowed is to say, “I’m fine” in the morning. They say, “No, use other words.” “It’s fine” is just so nondescript. Most of the time, especially in my experience, along with British people, my friends, and my family, saying “I’m fine” is a way to make other people feel comfortable rather than saying, “You know what, I’m actually having a shitty day.”

If not having a good time is something that you have to hide or conceal from other people, then you’re not able to be authentic or it can feel like you don’t have permission. But you shouldn’t feel like that. If you do, you’re already at war with your own thoughts. The large study the brand did showed that 80 percent of women use “I’m fine” a lot of the time. I’m glad that there’s a campaign that is trying to reach people.

Are there wellness routines that you regularly implement?

I know everyone says it, but having a regular meditation practice [is important]. It helps me slow down my thoughts, and that is always the thing that makes me feel calmer, softer, and more trusting. I started many years ago. Initially, I found it hard because my mind felt so noisy and almost scary. Then over the years, I’ve used guided meditations and took a transcendental meditation course, which I absolutely loved. Some weeks I do it quite a lot and then other weeks go by and I haven’t done it at all and need to come back to it. Sometimes, just doing a minute of deep, deep breathing and lying down for a second is just as valuable as doing two sessions of transcendental meditation a day.

Do you feel like there is a character that you’ve played that has had an admirable approach to mental health?

We did a film called The World to Come with my favorite director, Mona Fastvold. I played a character called Tallie who lived hundreds of years ago, and in a culture that was suppressing women’s abilities to live as freely as they wanted to, both romantically and physically. But she had such a positive, optimistic, expansive view on life. She just believed. She had huge faith in life, even though she had a really restrictive one. That changed me because she always saw beyond the limitations of what was in front of her. I felt so deeply for her because for women in those days, it must have been very hard to imagine that there was a life available beyond what was demanded of them, and she thought far, far, far beyond that.

What do you feel like you’ve learned from motherhood?

Motherhood requires selflessness and sacrifice of self in a way that’s beautiful and challenging. My daughter’s needs come before mine, and you have to learn as a mother how to balance both those things. You have to find self-care where you can, and you also have to give everything that little being needs. It’s been a very beautiful, humbling, expansive experience for me, and I’m very grateful.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.