Kim Cattrall used to be terrified of vampires.
The ‘Sex and the City’ actress developed an obsession with the blood-sucking undead after seeing Bela Lugosi’s classic 1931 portrayal of Count Dracula and was so afraid of them, she used to sleep with a scarf tied around her neck so nothing could bite her at night.
Asked her childhood obsession, she told Metro newspaper: "Vampires. I was terrified one would come through my window so I would sleep with a scarf around my neck. In case it would bite my neck.
"I saw Bela Lugosi on some late-night show."
But the ‘Modern Vampires’ actress admitted not everyone was sympathetic over her fear.
She said: "My grandmother liked to scare the living daylights out of me; she would put a sheet over her head and walk past the door while you were sitting there watching TV."
Although it’s unlikely Kim still suffers from nocturnal vampire terrors, the 59-year-old actress recently confessed to suffering debilitating insomnia, which caused her to pull out of a planned lead role in West End production ‘Linda’ last year.
She said recently: "I didn’t understand the debilitating consequence of having no sleep. It becomes a tsunami. I was in a void.
"I didn’t want to let down the audience, the theatre, playwright or the actors.
"Letting go of all that was the hardest part but I realised the work that I really needed to do was more important than the play – it was work or my sanity."
Kim – who was replaced in the production by Noma Dumezweni – didn’t listen to the "noise" of social media criticism when she pulled out of the play because she knew her problem was more "complex" than people realised.
She said: "I have my own voice on social media, where I can say: ‘If you’re interested in what really happened, the whole story is more complex than being disease of the week’, than someone saying, ‘I have this battle’.
"Coming back to the US, I hadn’t slept for 48 hours and had to wait six hours to get my 18-year-old cat through customs. When the customs officer said: ‘So how much is your cat worth?’ I couldn’t stop laughing hysterically."
Kim Cattrall reveals her childhood fear of vampires
