Comic Pete Davidson’s new film, The King Of Staten Island, helped him come to terms with the death of his firefighter father.
The actor, who lost his dad in the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York City in 2001, portrays an aspiring tattoo artist, struggling to process the death of his father 17 years prior in the comedy he co-wrote.
“I really wanted this to be cleansing for me,” the Saturday Night Live regular tells CBS This Morning. “I feel like I got to speak about it in the biggest way possible to get my story out there. I feel like now I could let it go.”
Davidson has been open about his mental health struggles in recent years and adds he “got as close as you can get” to harming himself in the past, noting that his risky behavior inspired key scenes in the film.
“Until I met the right treatments and met the right doctors and did all the work that you need to do to, like, not feel that way, it got pretty dark and scary,” he explains.
His own experiences influenced one sequence in the production, in which his character closes his eyes while driving on a busy road.
“Yeah, that’s true. I used to do that,” he adds. “That’s horrible to say. But yeah, I used to close my eyes on a closed road, usually at night. And I would drive without a seatbelt.”
