Teyana Taylor Reveals She Had Postpartum Depression While Filming 'A Thousand and One'

Teyana Taylor told Yahoo! Entertainment about the "emotional" time she was going through and how she channeled that into her character, Inez

Teyana Taylor. Photo: Taylor Hill/WireImage

Teyana Taylor had a lot on her plate while tackling the new dramatic role she's receiving early praise for.

In A Thousand and One, the 31-year-old multi-hyphenate — who is mom to daughters Rue Rose, 2, and Iman Tayla (a.k.a. Junie), 6½, with husband Iman Shumpert — plays Inez, a hairdresser who gets out on parole and kidnaps her son, Terry, out of foster care so they can start over together.

Speaking with Yahoo! Entertainment about her step into serious roles as an actress, the model mom of two admitted it was "definitely emotional" filming the drama.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Teyana Taylor. Marion Curtis/StarPix for Focus Features/Shutterstock

"I was actually six months postpartum when we started working on A Thousand and One. So I was dealing with literal postpartum depression," she revealed to the outlet.

"And in the midst of dealing with postpartum depression, I lost a lot of my childhood friends. [I was] back home to film and then come to find out that a lot of [my] childhood has been erased. That was a lot, emotionally."

Taylor called playing Inez "very therapeutic for me," explaining, "I was able to cry out loud for once."

Teyana Taylor Instagram

"I think I hadn't been able to do that because when you're a super mom, that's all your kids see you as, you're a superhero all day, every day," she continued. "So going to the set every day, I was able to put my cape to the side, have my therapy session and just cry out loud."

"Any type of quiet battles I was fighting or struggles, I was able to pour it all into Inez and really give my all. And I think that's what made it so real and authentic because every single emotion was real. Every single tear was real. Every single scream was real. Every single emotion was real," she explained.

As Taylor noted, "This role is something that I prayed for, something I was willing to work for. It was something I was willing to fight for. And that's exactly what I did."