Amanda Seyfried felt like she was "going to die" when she began having panic attacks on stage.
The 31-year-old actress credits her now-husband Thomas Sadoski – with whom she had a baby girl in March – for helping her through the debilitating moments when they starred together in off-Broadway show ‘The Way We Get By’ in 2015.
She recalled during an interview on ‘Dr. Berlin’s Informed Pregnancy Podcast’: "I started having panic attacks every six or seven shows.
"It feels like you’re going to die. It feels like you need to leave the stage. I would act through them, and I would just connect with Tommy. And he would always be aware of it. He would recognise that thousand yard stare.
"And then he would bring me back and the lines would keep flowing but my whole body would be cold and I’d be sweating at the same time."
Amanda admits the attacks would only last for a minute and she doesn’t think the audience ever noticed.
She said: "It would only last 60 seconds and then I’d get through it. It would pass on stage in front of everybody. There’s no way [the audience] would know, just Tommy and my mom."
And the ‘Les Miserables’ star admitted she feels much more "safe" in front of a camera than laying her anxieties bare on stage.
She said: "Up until [‘The Way We Get By’] I just didn’t have the energy to fight my fears. Because the fear is just too much."
The blonde beauty’s first movie role came in ‘Mean Girls’ and she had an "amazing" time on the project.
She said: "I didn’t have any expectations. I was just going to work every day. I was 17 and I had just graduated.
"Everybody was so nice, and everybody was so happy to be there. And there was so much free food and I’d never been around it before. They had me in a girdle because I was 17 and there was free food around."
Amanda Seyfried opens up about debilitating panic attacks
