17th October, 2020
By Taiwo Okanlawon
Nollywood actress Sharon Ooja reveals she lost about 3kg for her role in the EbonyLife Films’ latest blockbuster, Òlòtūré, a powerful art-nouveau-style movie centred around human trafficking.
Sharon played the role of an undercover journalist in the blockbuster movie.
In an interview with Pulse on Friday, she said: “In terms of weight loss, I lost about 3kg for the movie.
“When I first got on set, I was about 65kg. I was extremely well fed but I still lost a lot of weight because I don’t do well with emotional stress and the character was emotionally draining.
“I had a badly sprained ankle to be honest (laughs) I sprained my ankle and it hurt for almost a full year. But it was worth it, to be honest.”
The 29-year-old actress said she had to watch a lot of YouTube videos and googled about girls who have been trafficked to fit into the character.
Sharon added that she felt “so down” realising the pain a person who is raped goes through.
“Just acting it made me feel so down. Those were the challenging parts for me,” she said.
Òlòtūré which also stars Omoni Oboli, Beverly Osu and Ada Ameh captures the harsh reality of human trafficking in Nigeria and offers an insight into how women are coerced, under alluring and false pretences, and drawn into a dark underworld from which sadly, many never return.
Human trafficking is a form of modern slavery, with a conservatively estimated 21 million people in forced or coerced human trafficking worldwide.