The former Nickelodeon child star is on the cover of the new issue of Paper Magazine.
A 32-year-old Amanda Bynes has laid bare the details of her struggles with substance abuse and her road to recovery in the new issue of Paper Magazine. With her darker days behind her, she spoke about returning to acting when she met with the magazine on the campus of the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles, where she has been enrolled since 2014.
Bynes’ natural talent and one-of-a-kind comedic timing landed her role after role in the early 2000s. Shows and films such as All That, The Amanda Show, What a Girl Wants (which starred Colin Firth) and She’s the Man (which is credited with launching Channing Tatum’s career) evoke nostalgia for kids of the 90s.
In her interview, the former Nickelodeon child star, who has shied away from the limelight over recent years, is forthright about getting hooked on Adderrall just over ten years ago. She talks about how she read it was ‘the new skinny pill’ and managed to get a prescription by faking the symptoms of ADD.
Bynes reflects on her experiences on the set of Hall Pass, a time when she felt her use of Adderall began to have a huge impact on her behaviour. ‘When I was doing Hall Pass, I remember being in the trailer and I used to chew the Adderall tablets because I thought they made me [more] high [that way]. I remember chewing on a bunch of them and literally being scatterbrained and not being able to focus on my lines or memorize them for that matter.’
It was after her next film, Easy A, that she retired from acting over Twitter.
‘I was high on marijuana when I saw [Easy A] but for some reason it really started to affect me. I don't know if it was a drug-induced psychosis or what, but it affected my brain in a different way than it affects other people. It absolutely changed my perception of things.’
It has been via Twitter that Bynes’ personal struggles have been made known to the world, and led to speculations about her mental health in the tabloid press.
‘It definitely isn't fun when people diagnose you with what they think you are. That was always really bothersome to me. If you deny anything and tell them what it actually is, they don't believe you. Truly, for me, [my behavior] was drug-induced, and whenever I got off of [drugs], I was always back to normal.’
Now, Bynes has been sober for nearly 4 years. She will receive her Associate's of Art degree in Merchandise Product Development this month from FIDM. The assistant dean of admissions says she is ‘an amazing student’ and that her instructors ‘love her’. She would like to return to acting, ‘with excitement and hope for the best’.
Head to papermag.com to read the interview in full.