Why do you think we’re taught to conform?

It’s to make it easier in the short term, to make you mind your manners, to make you not cause discomfort to others, but those are only uncomfortable to others who are scared. And if you too don’t want to be scared or live your life as a fear-based person, you are going to ruffle feathers. It’s like when you clean out your closet, you make a mess at first, but then it gets clean.

There’s something about schooling: I was home-schooled a lot and then I went to some regular schools and I really noticed the conforming aspect of school. I think people just wanted their day to be easier, but it has a really deleterious effect over the long haul. And it keeps people small and I, for one, don’t want to be small and I don’t know many people who do. But I know a lot of people who don’t know how they can be different. I think, slowly, sometimes at the end of their life they realise they were different all along. It’s OK to be an outsider. It’s OK to be a weirdo. It’s OK to think differently. There’s an awful lot of us, the ones who are different. And maybe more people would be better off being like us.

As a teenager you moved between your aunt in Oregon, where you were bullied at school, and your father’s home in Colorado, where you were very popular at school. You say in the book, “I came to the conclusion that other people’s reactions were useless to me.” Do you still think that?

I think that’s what saved me in Hollywood, from being affected by fame, having my head turned by it, thinking I was all that and a bag of chips. There’s something about fame specifically that does that to people. They do think they’re oftentimes better than others. And I see myself as just a man of the people.

That started very young when I realised that other people’s opinions of me had no bearing on my actual life. It sucks. Everybody would rather be liked than disliked. I wanted people to like me for a very long time. It does get lonely, it definitely does, but that’s also something we can survive. I think if you know in your core that you are good and you are right, then you can hold on to that. Sometimes it’s cold comfort. Sometimes it’s all you have.

Would you describe yourself as polarising?

That’s something I’ve dealt with my entire life. There’s something about me that I think holds up a mirror to a lot of other people and a lot of times they don’t like what they see and I understand that I can make people uncomfortable just by existing.

It’s exhausting, it’s definitely puzzling and not necessarily fun. I’ve had to make peace with people disliking me. They don’t know me. I know if they spend five minutes with me I could probably change their mind.

You say the last year has been difficult in terms of your mental health. You do seem to drive yourself beyond what is physically and mentally good for you – you carried on doing stunts in the 2007 film Planet Terror with quite severe nerve damage. Do you see a pattern?

Yes. I feel like I have 50 whips at my back and I’m the one holding those whips. I don’t know why. I think of that saying, ‘God doesn’t give you more than you can handle’, but fuck, I’ve handled an awful lot. But then so many of us have. I figure I can’t be that different from other people.

Brave by Rose McGowan (£9.99, HQ) is out in paperback now

Images: Getty

Rose McGowan on leaving Hollywood behind and being an outsider in the wake of #MeToo