Sam Claflin Had a ‘Breakdown’ After ‘Hiding Behind Masks’ for Years (Exclusive)

The past year of Sam Claflin’s life has been one of breakthroughs — whether he was ready for them or not.

The English actor’s has been working pretty much nonstop since breaking out as Finnick Odair in Hunger Games: Catching Fire more than a decade ago, but his latest role as grieving psychiatrist Joel Lazarus in Harlan Coben’s Lazarus offered him the chance to do something he’d never done in his career: be himself.

“It definitely was new territory,” Claflin, 39, tells PEOPLE of his role in the new Prime Video series, which dropped all six episodes on Wednesday, Oct. 22. “I think he’s very similar to me in many ways, and I’ve spent quite a lot of my career hiding behind masks or characters or physicality, and this felt like it was me — in a new city, in a new world, with new people.”

His character, Joel, who viewers meet moments before he learns of the death of his dad (Bill Nighy), who died by suicide — though Joel is not convinced of that fact — has “been hiding for so much of his life,” Claflin says, which was where he saw himself reflected.

“Most of my career, I was hiding behind different masks,” he admits. “I’ve spent my entire life not really understanding who I am, and hiding or suppressing my emotions and not facing the facts, and yeah, I guess hiding or lying to myself.”

The making of this series allowed him to dig deeper. “I’ve definitely opened myself up a lot more to how I feel, and not needing or wanting everyone to like me anymore. I feel like I was so in need of validation from external sources, whereas now, it’s like, well, no, how do I feel? It doesn’t really matter what other people think of me — I’ll be me, and you either like me or you don’t,” he continues.

“I think there was something so noble about exploring that through the shoes, the eyes of somebody else.”

The actor is approaching 40 — he’ll mark the milestone birthday next June — and he’s well-aware his upcoming birthday could be contributing to the revelations he’s been having.

“Maybe it’s an age thing,” he says. “I’m reaching 40 next year, and I think a lot of — not just men, but women, too — spend our lives hiding or suppressing these feelings or these experiences, only for them to erupt at a later time, which is why we so commonly hear the phrase midlife crisis.”

Starring in Lazarus and digging into his own emotions through Joel’s shoes, Claflin says, has allowed him to have his own version of a midlife crisis, albeit one with more breakthroughs and fewer breakdowns.

“It’s definitely led to that for me in a wonderful way. It’s really made me see myself and the world around me differently,” he says of making the show.

“I needed to address some issues in my life, and I’ve been busy doing that since we finished filming, basically,” the father of two says.

He’s been “opening Pandora’s box” within himself. “I’m grateful for the breakdown,” he admits. “A ‘spiritual awakening,’ I remember reading somewhere.

The Daisy Jones and the Six star was drawn to the limited series — which is based on an original story idea of Coben’s and co-written with Danny Brocklehurst — because of the pieces he could see of himself in the character.

“That was definitely a big draw, because I feel like the older I get, the more authenticity I can bring to roles,” he says. “I’ve had a lot more experiences in my life and real-life events have happened, and it’s easier to draw on those experiences to bring them to characters — to really feel things. It’s almost therapeutic, I guess you could say.”

Of course, Coben himself was another draw. “The fact that it’s Harlan Coben, who’s a tried and tested master of the craft of writing these types of series and books and stories, was definitely a big draw also. You can’t help but be excited when his name appears on something.”

Per the official logline, Lazarus “follows a man (Claflin) who returns home after his father’s (Nighy) suicide and begins to have disturbing experiences that can’t be explained. He quickly becomes entangled in a series of cold-case murders as he grapples with the mystery of his father’s death and his sister’s murder 25 years ago.”

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Harlan Coben’s Lazarus is now streaming on Prime Video.