Alex Wolff has opened up about his traumatic experience filming Hereditary.

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The actor recently reflected on his role in Ari Aster’s 2018 horror film, saying “that movie did about as much damage to me as a movie can do.”

He explained in an interview with Looper that he lost sleep and suffered psychological effects, saying he suffered “all of it. It really affected me.”

He went on: “It’s very hard because as an actor, you really don’t want to sound pretentious or self-serious or like anything is too serious.

“Because we have a cushy job in a lot of ways, but this, emotionally, it was one of those tough ones, it was one of those ones that really did some gymnastics on my emotional well-being.”

Alex Wolff will next be starring in Pig, an indie psychological thriller opposite Nicolas Cage. The actor called Cage “one of my best friends in the world” in an interview with NME last year.

“He’s one of the greatest actors who’s ever lived,” he said. “He’s one of my best friends in the world now, we talk almost every day. We connected on an emotional level and I felt like he was guiding me across the lake during scenes. He always wanted to do a couple of takes for himself and then he would want to spend a lot of time on my coverage.

He added: “On day one I had to do a scene where I get in a car with him and I have to freak out and start screaming.

“I was imitating him a lot – and I said to him before we did the take, ‘listen, freaking out in front of you is like doing a guitar solo in front of Jimi Hendrix.’”

Pig will be released in UK cinemas on August 20.