Actor and activist Alysia Reiner, perhaps best known for her role on Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, got candid about the difficulty of filming the show’s final season, during which she had an emotional moment that caused her to break down on set.

In its seventh and final season, the show has shone a light on people affected by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Reiner plays Natalie "Fig" Figueroa on the show, a character who for the last seven years has exuded a no-nonsense attitude. This season, Fig was the warden of an ICE detainment facility.

Reiner said that shooting the ICE storyline during the current border crisis was overwhelming. She recalled doing a few takes of a scene in which she walked into a courtroom within the ICE detention center on set, saying “just the imaginary circumstance of it” was emotionally taxing.

“My character doesn’t break down. She handles it. She keeps it in,” Reiner said. “But after two takes, it was the first time in my life where I stopped a set, where I could not breathe and I could not stop crying. Just the idea of what’s going on.”

“It’s deeply heartbreaking,” she said.