Former teen star talks return

Amanda Bynes “went into a deep depression” after seeing herself as a boy in She’s The Man.

The actress, now 32, starred alongside Channing Tatum in the 2006 movie, a modern take on William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, with her teenage character donning a male guise to pose as her brother.

Sporting the masculine look had a dramatic effect on Bynes, however, as she told Paper magazine: “When the movie came out and I saw it, I went into a deep depression for four to six months because I didn’t like how I looked when I was a boy.

“(It was) a super strange and out-of-body experience. It just really put me into a funk.”

It was after starring in 2010 teen drama Easy A that Bynes made the decision to retire from the acting world, announcing her decision on Twitter. Revealing she was “young, stupid and high” when she sent the tweet, the screen star’s life became somewhat meaningless after she left acting behind.

“I just had no purpose in life. I’d been working my whole life and (now) I was doing nothing,” she said. “I had a lot of time on my hands and I would ‘wake and bake’ and literally be stoned all day long.”

After a public meltdown that saw her hospitalized, arrested multiple times and enter rehab, she eventually enrolled in a course at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. She’s now hoping to get back into acting.

“I have no fear of the future. I’ve been through the worst and came out the other end and survived it, so I just feel like it’s only up from here.”