Nollywood actress Sharon Ooja says a recent role playing a character with bipolar disorder was one of the most demanding performances of her career, describing the psychological toll as heavier than anything physical work on set has required of her.

Speaking in an interview on Arise TV, the 35-year-old actress said the constant shifting between sharply different emotional states — sometimes within the same scene — left her mentally exhausted throughout filming.

In her words, the actress said:

“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. This gave me so much empathy for people actually dealing with mental health issues because it was draining. My director would sometimes have to call me because he’s like, you’re not staying on tempo, you’re going back to normal, you can’t be normal. So, it was so draining having to be crying, laughing, angry so many emotions in one.”

The actress broke into the industry in 2013 after moving to Lagos, debuting on screen in the series "Gidi Up" before gaining wider recognition as Shalewa in "Skinny Girl in Transit." She has since built a varied résumé that includes "King of Boys," "The Bling Lagosians," "Òlòtūré" and its follow-up "Òlòtūré: The Journey," "Glamour Girls" and "Hijack '93."