Actor Will Poulter is candid about his personal struggles, even as he grabs the spotlight with his latest role in A24's chilling new horror flick, Death of a Unicorn.

Hailing from London, Poulter made his acting debut at the tender age of 13. As his career soared, he was quietly grappling with OCD, a battle he has recently discussed publicly.

On Fearne Cotton's Happy Place podcast, Poulter opened up about being diagnosed with OCD during his teenage years. Now 32, he shared memories of enduring intrusive thoughts since childhood, a hallmark of the disorder.

Yet, as a child, these mental challenges took on an 'imaginative spin.'

Poulter recounted: "It [the OCD] just had a different and typically imaginative spin on it for a child. I can remember having this voice in my head, telling me if I didn't walk on certain paving stones on the way up to my mum and dad's house, something terrible was going to happen to them."

He considers himself fortunate to have accessed therapy early on. "I was really lucky. I got access to therapy in my early teens. I was probably 14 when I first started experiencing obsessive compulsive thoughts and the ruminations and intrusive thoughts," he confided, reports the Mirror.

Before understanding his condition, the Black Mirror actor feared his thought patterns, feeling isolated in his experience with OCD.

He opened up, saying: "Until it was diagnosed and until I received that therapy, I just thought I was totally alone with this condition, or not even condition at that time, this way of thinking, with this defunct brain. I was so scared.

"And that I think is the scariest thing about any mental health issues and you can never underestimate how alone someone can feel in their state."

Poulter has been remarkably open about his personal struggles, but he's also known for sharing tantalising tidbits about his career highlights.

In 2023, he made waves by joining the cast of FX's acclaimed series The Bear, featuring in two episodes of the second season and returning for the third.

Eager to join the Emmy-winning show, the Marvel star 'begged' Christopher Storer for a role. However, he recently disclosed that his initial aspiration was to develop his own television project similar to The Bear.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Poulter divulged his past ambitions: "I was in conversation with a really big production company and I pitched them my show about chefs trying to make it in a big city, and I heard crickets, and I was little bit bummed."

After encountering a promotional billboard for The Bear in Los Angeles, Poulter reached out to Storer, leading to a fruitful collaboration.

Reflecting on their connection, he shared: "We hit it off so well."

"And I begged him for a role in The Bear and he was kind enough to bless me with the part of Luca and it kind of changed my life man, it [is] like, a really really special part of my life now," Poulter concluded.

The celebrity is set to appear in the seventh season of Netflix's hit series Black Mirror, which launches on April 10. Poulter first joined the franchise back in 2018, when he starred in the standalone interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.

He will return as Colin Ritman in the fourth episode of the new season, dubbed 'Plaything', which revolves around a murder suspect entangled in a cutting-edge video game.

Death of a Unicorn is in cinemas from Friday, April 4.