Trivia / Orange Is the New Black

• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Both Nicky and Natasha Lyonne are estranged from their mothers and have had issues with substance dependency. Also, Lyonne actually did have a heart infection; the scar is real.
  • Kimiko Glenn, like Brook Soso, is of mixed Japanese and Scottish ancestry too.
• Billing Displacement: In a move completely unprecedented for television, Michael J. Harney is credited in every episode of Season 5, but Healy does not appear in any capacity or even get mentioned at any point during the season. It's currently unclear whether his credit was left in by mistake, or whether Healy actually was supposed to appear but had his scenes cut.
• Breakthrough Hit: One of Netflix's first major successes with original programming, along with House of Cards, and easily their most popular original show before Daredevil and Stranger Things came out.
• Career Resurrection: For Natasha Lyonne. After starring in the American Pie franchise, she was arrested for various bizarre incidents, and by 2005, she was hospitalized for hepatitis C, a heart infection, and a collapsed lung. She even went through a methadone treatment for a heroin addiction and had track marks on her body. OITNB was her highest-profile role in over a decade, and she later starred in Netflix's Russian Doll.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Uzo Aduba originally auditioned for the part of Watson. Watson was also intended to be the most prominent character of the black group, but gradually became the least prominent one.
• The Cast Showoff: The Christmas pageant was an excuse to show off all the talents the actresses had. Including the normally silent Norma, played by the lead singer of the punk band The Shirts.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Jenji Kohan has actually gone on record apologising to fans for the quality of Season 5, saying that the writing was often amateurish and the sort of thing you'd expect to see in fan fiction, as well as revealing that she had subsequently fired nearly all the writing staff who worked on the season.
  • Dascha Polanco and Nick Sandow were similarly critical of Season 5, with Polanco calling the season a "waste of time", and Sandow feeling that setting the whole season across the course of a couple of days was a gimmick that didn't really work.
• Creator Cameo: The real life Piper can be seen in the opening credits; she has bright blue eyes and is the only person to blink.
• Dawson Casting: Many of the actresses play their younger, even teenage versions in flashbacks. Some, like Samira Wiley (Poussey) or Emma Myles (Leanne), are more convincing, some, like Taryn Manning (Pennsatucky) less. Also Daya, a character in her early twenties, is played by an actress in her early thirties (and very close in age to the actress playing her on-screen mother), Dascha Polanco, admittedly a definite Older Than They Look case.
• Directed by Cast Member: Laura Prepon and Nick Sandow both directed episodes in Seasons 5, 6, and 7, with Sandow directing the Season 6 finale. Natasha Lyonne also directed an episode of Season 7.
• Fake American: Italian-American Lorna Morello is played by Australian Jew Yael Stone.
• Fake Russian: Galina "Red" Reznikov is played by the Irish-American Kate Mulgrew.
• I Am Not Spock: A few interviewers have made the mistake of equating the personalities of some actresses with those of the characters they play. Danielle Brooks and Samira Wiley have gotten it more than once; in reality, both are educated, well-spoken and professional women. However, confusions such as this only speak to the quality of the show's performances.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • The straight and Heteronormative Crusader Pennsatucky is played by bisexual actress Taryn Manning.
  • The xenophobic Morello, who dislikes immigrants and non-Americans, is played by the very Australian Yael Stone.
  • The neo-Nazi Brandy Epps, played by non-binary LGBTQ+ activist Asia Kate Dillon.
• Killer App: One of the reasons to get a Netflix account if you don't have one already.
• Making Use of the Twin: Laverne Cox's (Sophia) twin brother M Lamar was used to portray her before her transition from male to female. The show runners actually didn't know she had a twin when they cast her, and couldn't believe their luck when they found out.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor:
  • The show features lesbian Samira Wiley as Poussey, Butch Lesbian Lea DeLaria as Carrie "Big Boo" Black, and trans actress Laverne Cox as Sophia. Then in season 3 Ruby Rose plays a lesbian. She is not only a lesbian but genderfluid too (still using female pronouns though). The last season introduces Dominga "Daddy" Duarte, who is either a lesbian or transgender (it's ambiguous), and played by lesbian Vicci Martinez. The bisexual lead Piper Chapman is portrayed by actress Taylor Schilling, who identifies as queer. McCullough similarly is indicated to be lesbian or bi, while her actress Emily Tarver started a relationship with Vicci Martinez after it ended.
  • In a rare out example in the Brazilian dub, bisexual Piper is voiced by bisexual actress Mabel Cezar, one of the rare out LGBT voice actors in Brazil. Mabel is married to the voice actress and translator Rayani Immediato, who voices Zirconia in the show.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Dascha Polanco's real daughter Dasany plays Daya as a teenager in flashbacks.
  • In the Brazilian dub, Jade's voice actress Luiza Cezar is daughter of Piper's voice actress Mabel Cezar, from a previous relationship she had (with a man) before, as mentioned above, marrying Zirconia's voice actress Rayane Immediato. Consequentially, Rayane is Luiza's stepmother.
• Romance on the Set: At least two are known to have occurred — one between actress Samira Wiley (Poussey) and writer Lauren Morelli, and another between actresses Emily Tarver (McCollough) and Vicci Martinez (Daddy).
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Due to the show's concept, there's a constant demand for younger counterparts of all characters. With few exceptions, the resemblance varies from fantastic to downright uncanny. In the episode "Tied to the Tracks" Dascha Polanco's daughter Dasany Kristal Gonzalez plays teenaged Daya.
• Star-Making Role: Most of the show's main roles have been either this or a Career Resurrection, in large part because the producers cast women representing a realistically diverse range of ethnic backgrounds, ages, and body types, giving breaks to talented actresses who had previously struggled to find roles that let them really show what they could do.
• Underage Casting: Elizabeth Rodriguez, who was 33 years old when the series started, plays Aleida who is a mother of the 24 year old Daya (played by actress Dascha Pascho, who is just under two years her junior).
• Tom Hanks Syndrome: Laura Prepon was previously best known as Donna on That '70s Show, a comedic series that couldn't be any more different than Orange.
• Trans Character, Cis Actor: While trans woman Sophia is played by trans actress Laverne Cox and became her Star-Making Role, in flashbacks to periods before she transitioned, she is played by Cox's cisgender twin brother Marcus Lamar.
• What Could Have Been: Cindy reportedly was going to have a much darker final fate after her daughter learns the truth about how she was born, but the actress convinced the crew to bump it up to a more Bittersweet Ending.
• Word of God: In season 7, after Aleida snaps and begins strangling her daughter Daya to death, with Daya's fate left uncertain. The show's writers confirmed that Daya does survive being strangled by her mother.

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