You filmed the first season all at once and in a vacuum. We broke new ground in so many ways and I know how fortunate I am to be part of it. It was us, Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends and Seinfeld. That ‘70s Show went for eight years but it was a different time. When this script came around, you had to pay attention to it.
At the time I was seeing a lot of scripts because I was a free agent, and I was being very particular with what I wanted to do. And the material really, really spoke to me. One thing I’ve learned is that it’s about the material. When I looked at Alex, I thought she was an incredible character with a lot of potential. But I’m always willing to take a risk for something that I believe in. So when I first read the script, it was explained to me as a webisode! And I was coming from primetime network television - I was on That ‘70s Show for eight years, and then I did October Road on ABC and Are You There Chelsea? on NBC. Netflix hadn’t taken off yet, we were on that streaming ride with them the whole way. What did you know about OITNB when you signed on? The first episode ended with Alex’s arrival at Litchfield, but the writers didn’t even know how the season was going to end when they were casting. After having the good fortune to do this for over 20 years, it’s rare when you have those moments of that special connection and we have that. And you can only hope for that type of thing to happen. Then as soon as we worked together, we knew this was going to be great. Such a wonderful actress who has this softness to her, but also through the years, you really lean into her strength. The final scene of the series saw the pair laughing together in a visitation room, as the real Piper and her husband, Larry Smith, made a cameo nearby.Īs soon as I met Taylor, I totally got it. Over the course of OITNB, the tortured soulmates would embark on a will they-won’t they affair that ended with a prison wedding and, in the series finale, a commitment to each other while Piper makes a clean start in Ohio and Alex finishes up a four-year sentence in the nearby maximum security prison. But Alex and Piper quickly became the show’s central romance, which broke ground for LGBTQ representation in 2013. In an oral history with the cast and team that launched OITNB into TV phenomenon status, Prepon was among the 23 people who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the early days of her character Alex, who came into Litchfield Penitentiary as the drug-smuggling ex-girlfriend of protagonist Piper, who had a fiance (Jason Biggs) on the outside. But when the Netflix series would wrap its acclaimed run seven seasons later, the love story between Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) and Alex Vause ( Laura Prepon) would go on to diverge wildly and not even the stars behind the show’s central romance knew how it would end. Orange Is the New Black was inspired by the story and memoir of Piper Kerman.
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