Nollywood actress Sharon Ooja has described playing a character living with bipolar disorder as one of the toughest jobs of her career, saying the role left her mentally drained and forced her director to pull her back whenever she slipped into her real self.
Speaking on Arise TV, the 35-year-old star said the work was harder because she does not live with the condition herself.
“I think that because it was more mentally draining for me; when you’re a normal person playing a bipolar role, it’s a lot of work.”
The performance demanded constant switches between crying, anger and laughter.
“So it was so draining having to be crying, angry, laughing, so many emotions in one.”
Ooja said those swings changed how she sees people who actually live with mental health conditions.
“This gave me so much empathy for people who are actually dealing with mental health issues because it was draining.”
Staying in character was so difficult that the director had to intervene on set.
“My director would sometimes have to call me because he’s like, you’re not staying on tempo, you can’t be normal.”
She ranked the psychological load above physical strain.
“So absolutely, it was definitely one of the toughest I had, especially mentally, which is, in my opinion, almost worse than physical.”
Ooja, born Sharon Ooja Egwurube on 6 April 1991 in Kaduna, rose to fame as Shalewa in Skinny Girl in Transit. She has since appeared in films including Oloture, Glamour Girls, Hijack ’93 and Recall.