Orange is the New Black is the story of Piper Chapman, a woman in her thirties who is sentenced to fifteen months in prison after being convicted of a decade-old crime of transporting money for her drug-dealing girlfriend. It was first released on Netflix in June of 2013. In case you haven’t heard, it is one of the best shows ever! Every June since then, 13 new episodes are released. And if you are anything like me, you just might take a day or two off from the world and binge watch them all at once. Or maybe you are one of those people who like to space them out and savor them. Whatever your viewing preference is, if you are a fan, you are always looking for new and interesting facts and tidbits about the show. I hope the following 27 Orange Is The New Black facts listed have at least one or two you didn’t know.
1. The episode title is stated at some point in every episode.
2. Jodie Foster directed the first episode of Season 2.
3. Former Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy directed four episodes in Season 2.
4. Beth Fowler, who plays Sister Ingalls, has played a nun before on camera. She was in Sister Act and Sister Act 2.
5. Kate Mulgrew (Red) played the mother of Taylor Schilling (Piper) on the TV series Mercy from 2009 to 2010.
6. That is the real Alex Vause up top. Her name is Catherine Cleary Wolters. Notice they have the same glasses.
7. Real Piper (Piper Kerman) was not in jail with Wolters, but she did get flown to Chicago to testify and that is the only time she saw her ex-girlfriend.
8. Laura Prepon originally auditioned for the role of Piper. It’s hard to picture her as Piper after knowing her as Alex.
9. Uzo Aduba (Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren) originally auditioned for the part of Janae Watson (Vicky Jeudy). Apparently she was a track star in school so she probably would have fit the part well.
10. Samira Wiley (Poussey) doesn’t speak German and spent a lot of time working with a coach and shouting things around her apartment to prepare for her character’s flashback scenes.
11. Orange Is the New Black Season 2 was released the same day as the film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars, and the book makes a cameo.
12. Barbara Rosenblat (Miss Rosa) guest-starred on an episode of Veep.
13. Matt McGorry (Officer Bennett) is in Shonda Rhimes’ new fall drama How to Get Away With Murder on ABC, which stars Viola Davis.
14. Uzo Aduba and Lea DeLaria (Big Boo) were on Broadway together in 2011 in Prometheus Bound.
15. Lorraine Toussaint (Vee), Danielle Brooks (Taystee), and Samira Wiley are all Juilliard graduates. The latter two were only a year apart and knew each other in school. I bet they never imagined they would all be in prison together.
16. In the book on which the series is based, Kerman talks about the demographics in prison and says there was “one tiny Chinese woman in her sixties.”
17. Brooks and Aduba are really good friends in real life, and both have amazing voices.
18. Annie Gordon (Norma) is not mute in real life. In fact, she was in a band called The Shirts.
19. OITNB creator Jenji Kohan (left) wrote an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1994.
20. Pablo Schreiber, who plays “Pornstache” Mendez, is Liev Schrieber’s half-brother in real life. I almost didn’t recognize him without the pornstache.
21. Laverne Cox’s (Sophia) real-life twin brother played her pre-transition in the flashback sequence in Episode 3.
22. Yael Stone, who plays Morello, is Australian. Her accent in the show is so crazy you would never guess.
23. This is Crazy Eyes in real life (actress Uzo Aduba).
24. This is the real Piper and Larry.
25. Red is actress Kate Mulgrew. You may may know her as Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek. There was a Star Trek reference between her and Nicky where she didn’t know who Spock was.
26. Matt McGorry, who plays CO Bennet, used to be a body builder and personal trainer.
27. The scar we see on Nicky is a real scar from heart surgery that Natasha Lyonne had in 2012.
The show was recently picked up for the last and final season. So come summer I know what I’ll be doing.