Richard Madden felt 'broken' and considered quitting acting after 'Bodyguard'

Bodyguard very much took its toll on Richard Madden.

And now the Game of Thrones star has revealed how playing the close protection officer with PTSD David Budd for the BBC drama left him 'broken'.

In a round table interview with The Hollywood Reporter, it was dicussed how he considered whether he should continue acting.

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“Yeah, at the end, I was like, 'I need to stop doing this for a while,'” he said.

“Because it weighed very heavily on me. I was very isolated during it. You spend so much time in someone else's clothes, saying someone else's words, thinking someone else's thoughts, that you lose a bit of yourself.

“And I'm not a method actor in any way, but you get a huge hangover. And at the end of that, I felt broken, much like the character was.

“Physically and mentally exhausted. I know we're not curing cancer, but you're giving everything you've got.”

It was all worth it, however.

He won the Golden Globe for Best Actor – Television Series Drama, and the National Television Award for Drama Performance.

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After the hit show – a ratings record breaker for the BBC which then toured the world on Netflix – he landed a spot on Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the world list.

Madden, said to be among the front-runners to play the next James Bond, is currently appearing in the Elton John biopic Rocketman.