Weruche Opia is the brightest light. Portraying Terry on the critically acclaimed series created by (and starring) Michaela Coel, I May Destroy You, Opia exudes an energy that you can’t take your eyes off of. As Arabella’s (Coel) best friend, Terry is like the piece of a very relatable puzzle. As the series progresses, you quickly fall in love with their friendship (and their mantras—like, “my birth is your birth, G...,” which I particularly appreciate since we constantly used “G” as slang growing up in Chicago) and are engrossed with the many challenges they face throughout—it feels real. Rockin’ her beautiful cornrows, Opia spoke with The Root about her craft and how taking off Terry’s wig also represents taking off everything that comes with Terry (including some of her turmoil) so that she can maintain her sanity. Still, Opia does relate to her onscreen persona in a lot of ways, including the way she views her friends as family. “The thing that I can most relate to is Terry being a young aspiring actor. More than anything, I know about that!” Opia chuckled. “I’ve been there before, in terms of my self-confidence issues, going to auditions—multiple auditions [and] not getting the role, but still forging on.” As Opia was born in Nigeria and is now living in the U.K., we also discussed the significance of telling the global story of sexual assault. “Black people are everywhere!” she said. “So, it’s nice to have this show that unifies us in a sense that we all actually experience the same things. It might be different locations, but as human beings in general, regardless of what race you are, we all experience the same things.” I May Destroy You airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on HBO.