Justin Theroux Once Helped His The Leftovers Costar Ann Dowd Navigate a ‘Panic Attack’: ‘He Talked Me Through It’

Justin Theroux once helped Ann Dowd out of a tricky situation.

During the Leftovers Reunion panel at the ATX TV Festival, the actress, 69, looked back at her relationship with her former costar, 53, and how the two formed a close bond while working on the show.

While filming the HBO drama, which aired from 2014 to 2017, Theroux and Dowd lived together. And when she suddenly experienced a panic attack, the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice actor was by her side.

“I was living with Justin and I’d never had a panic attack like that,” she recalled, noting that, at the time, she was getting ready to drop her daughter off at college. “You think you are going to die, it was scary, but Justin told me you’re having a panic attack and he talked me through it.”

“He told me things were going to be alright, and things were alright. And the next day, things were better,” she smiled.

The Leftovers, which ran for four seasons on three seasons, followed the aftermath of a global cataclysm that results in the unexplained disappearance of 140 million people, finds Kevin (Theroux), a police officer and father, relocated to a small Texas town from Mapleton, New York.

In addition to Theroux and Dodd, the series starred Carrie Coon, Margaret Qualley, Amy Brenneman, Emily Meade, Chris Zylka, Regina King, Kevin Carroll and more.

This isn’t the first time Dowd has opened up about experiencing anxiety.

While speaking to PEOPLE and Entertainment Weekly at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2023, the Handmaid’s Tale star told hosts Janine Rubenstein and Jeremy Parsons that she “made new friends with anxiety” during the health crisis.

“I assume we all have,” she said, adding how important working on Hulu drama had been to her.

“I realized I thought I already knew how much work means to me, but the profound gratitude of getting back to work, and people making it — Hulu, in our case — making it so safe,” she continued. “We could do our work without worrying. Come on now, what is better? Considering the suffering in the world. So that’s what I learned.”

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The Leftovers can be streamed on Max.