A YOUNG York actress who starred alongside Mel Gibson in Braveheart has spoken for the first time about her battle with depression.

Mhairi Calvey, who lives in York with her mother Dominique Calvey, was just six when she won the role of Young Murron in the Oscar-winning epic.

Now, at 26-years-old, she has landed a big break with a role in science fiction thriller Abduct, directed by visual effects expert Ilyas Kaduji of Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia fame.

But the actress has revealed how she has struggled with bouts of debilitating depression, most recently last year when she was living in London and had no support network around her.

She said she hoped to set up her own charity to help people with depression and tackle the stigma often associated with the illness.

“I’ve started a Facebook page called Think Differently Do Differently that has tips about how to manage depression and how to find a support team,” she said.

“I’m going to put up a range of different things and I just hope it grows.

“I would love to make it into a national or international charity. I just think there has to be more awareness of depression.

“There’s a lot of stigma. That needs to change.”

She said she was now looking to the future and the upcoming release of Abduct, which also stars William B Davis of X-Files fame, and Sienna Gullory of Resident Evil and Eragon, but she would never forget her time on the set of Braveheart.

“It was a perfect place to start,” she said. “I remember it really clearly, chatting to Brian Cox when we were filming and working with Mel Gibson who directed me on the set. You learn a lot from people like that.

“After Braveheart I was invited on to the child Hollywood scene but my mum wasn’t a pushy parent so she decided I could go down that road when I was older.

“It’s worked out well.

“My life has started falling back into place and things are going great. I’ve turned everything around in a year.”