The actress Rose McGowan echoed calls for a broad conversation about depression and mental illness in an open letter on Monday about her friend Asia Argento, an actress, and Ms. Argento’s partner, Anthony Bourdain, who killed himself last week.

“To the media and to the random commenter, Anthony would never have wanted Asia to be hurt, I’d like to think he would want us to have the collective conversation that needs to be had about depression,” she wrote.

In the letter, addressed to “fellow humans,” Ms. McGowan said that neither Ms. Argento nor Mr. Bourdain, the famous food writer and television host, deserved blame for his death.

“Anthony’s internal war was his war, but now she’s been left on the battlefield to take the bullets,” she wrote. “It is in no way fair or acceptable to blame her or anyone else, not even Anthony.”