There's no question that Netflix's new streaming series 13 Reasons Why is a tough watch. The series tackles hard-to-handle topics like suicide, depression, and sexual assault, making it a little more challenging to stomach than your typical soapy teen drama. However, as much as the audience struggled to push through some of the more devastating scenes, we could always take a break from the series and pick it up when we were in a better headspace. Not so for star Katherine Langford, who plays the deceased Hanna on the series. In Langford's new interview with E! News, the actress revealed how she coped with the challenging material, and what she did to pull herself out of that dark head space.
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(Spoiler alert!) Sitting beside her co-star Dylan Minnette, Langford, whose character Hanna kills herself before the events of the series, told E! News that she needed a reprieve from the heavier aspects of the series — which she did by watching old episodes of a beloved sitcom:
"I watched a lot of The Office," said Langford.
Unlike her co-star Minnette, who got to visit his home of Los Angeles while the cast was filming in Northern California, Langford couldn't go back to her home country of Australia until after the show was done filming. Fortunately, she made her NorCal apartment feel a little more like home with this special addition:
"The first thing that I put in my apartment was a piano. I bought one for $50 and it was a lifesaver because I just went home and played and played…I'm sure I annoyed everyone on the same floor," Langford joked to E! News.
Piano has actually been a big part of Langford's journey. She told Entertainment Weekly that she taught herself to play at 16 after a Lady Gaga concert.
"I don’t play professionally or very well for that matter," she told Entertainment Weekly. "[On] set, we would sometimes have green rooms, which were houses, and those houses would have pianos and so I would play in between takes."
It sounds like Langford found what worked for her in order to provide an audience with a seriously powerful portrayal — even if it wasn't always easy.
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