13 Reasons Why is hardly an easy show to stomach: The series is an exploration of bullying, sexual assault, and suicide, and contains plenty of watch-through-your-hands scenes. For the show's cast, they had to play out those traumatic scenes in real life — something that's never an easy task. How did they get through the tough stuff? According to stars Katherine Langford and Dylan Minnette's interview with PopSugar, the answer was... dogs.
Langford, who portrays Hannah on the series, previously told E! News that she coped with portraying a suicidal teenager by practicing the piano on set every chance she got. Minnette, meanwhile, told E! News that he liked to take a break from his role of Clay to visit his home in Los Angeles when he wasn't filming in Northern California. However, when there wasn't a piano or a flight to Los Angeles available, the 13 Reasons Why crew had a solution that made sure their cast was emotionally taken care of: therapy dogs.
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"I know there was one scene, I wasn't around, but they had therapy dogs on set," the real-life Clay Jensen revealed to PopSugar. "There was a puppy per hour. They really tried to help out. The puppies helped."
Minnette also told PopSugar that he had to give Langford credit for taking on perhaps the heaviest part in the new Netflix series:
"[Katherine] had the brunt of the emotional stuff. I mean, we all have very emotional parts, but this is about her character."
Of course, therapy dogs aren't only useful for actors dealing with challenging material. Therapy dogs recently made the news for assisting swimmers during often-stressful Olympic trials. These pups offer great mental health benefits to those dealing with a plethora of issues, including grief and anxiety. (Not so into puppies? SFO now has a therapy pig on the payroll to offer snuggles to the fly-phobic.)
It sounds like the crew behind 13 Reasons Why created a supportive environment in which actors were able to fully feel all their emotions. Should Netflix grant 13 Reasons Why a season 2, I'm sure Minnette will request to be scheduled on one of those puppy days.