Styled by Andrew Gelwicks; shirt and pants by Express; dress by Issey Miyake

Amanda Fuller at Cosmopolitan.com HQ. Ruben Chamorro

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for the new season of Orange Is the New Black. If you haven't watched yet, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE. And also, STREAM IT HERE.



If you recognize Amanda Fuller, you’re probably scared shitless of her. The actress's character on the new season of Orange Is the New Black—Badison—has a name that kind of says it all: she’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad news.

She is the kind of woman who literally breaks another woman’s face just for LOLs. The kind of woman who bullies and intimidates her way to Queen Bee status. The kind of woman who tries to sabotage someone from successfully making her prison release date ostensibly because she thinks it’s funny but really because she’s insecure and lonely and jealous.

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Thing is, you don’t know Amanda Fuller. IRL, the California girl (that’s right, the Good Will Hunting accent isn’t real) is the kind of woman you feel like you’re already friends with even though you’ve only just met. The kind of woman who, despite arriving at Cosmopolitan.com HQ last week for an interview and photo shoot wearing a bright yellow and white baseball tee that says “DON’T TELL ME TO SMILE 😑,” couldn’t stop beaming all morning.

Amanda Fuller as Badison in Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black. JoJo Whilden/Netflix

The kind of woman who is warm, self-deprecating, and empathic—so much so that she follows up our interview the next day with an email because she couldn’t stop thinking about one of my questions: What can Badison teach us about bullying?

“BULLYING IS NEVER THE ANSWER,” Fuller wrote. “It simply doesn't work. No matter how scared or lonely or desperate or mad you are at your world, being mean to your peers is never going to get you what you want. Acting out like a bully is useless and damaging. Badison is the perfect example of this. Tormenting others is the only way she thinks she can protect herself from getting more hurt. She feels powerless in her life and always has, so she is driven to ‘achieve power,’ but her method is her demise. She's in a constant downward spiral.”

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The character breakdown Fuller first received for Badison was “Dirty. Sexy. Boston Irish,” she tells me. “And something about her having a drug addiction and was on an episode of Intervention or something.” Turns out, she’s a hell of a lot more. Oh, and you haven’t seen the last of her: Fuller revealed during our chat that she is coming back for season seven, so prepare yourselves.

She is driven to ‘achieve power,’ but her method is her demise.

Here’s more from our sit-down on how she transformed into Badison, how the character changed her, and that accent.

On her first impressions of Badison:

“Her name is Badison, so clearly she’s supposed to be some sort of a bad ass. And that was exciting from the get go; to be like, Oh, I can work on my own self confidence through this person who exudes power, even if it’s false. That’s what she leads with in order to cope with her life and with her issues and that’s something that maybe I could use a little bit more of. Not in the mean way. But in the sense that instead of crying in a hole, going into a cave, and hiding from the world, her survival mechanism is to show up. And that’s hard for me to do a lot.

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So it forced me to not hide. I had to show up on set every day and bring it and be at that place where I was fully confident in my skin, even if it wasn’t. So that part was really fun. But it was also scary because she’s not nice. Though at the same time Badison is just a clown, so a lot of the stuff that they wrote for me just got bigger and crazier and more vulgar which is just fun because you’re playing. But I didn’t want her to be one dimensional so the whole time I was trying to navigate that.”

On her motivations:

“What breaks my heart about her is something I can totally relate to, as a woman and as an actor in this business, is just the need to be liked. We all need companionship and, I think, she’s ultimately alone. And that’s what maybe drives it the most. Just thinking about it more makes me so sad!”

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On that Bahston accent:

“I mean, I just had all the Ben Affleck Boston movies in my ears all the time. And Amy Ryan—she just is so authentic. Even though Badison is a much bigger character and it's a much different thing, it was trying to have a foundation that I wanted it to still be somehow authentic. Luckily, there were a lot of crew members who were from Boston. Some of them would come up to me and be like, ‘Dude! Where are you from in Boston?’ So that was a nice ego boost—it kept me going because the whole time I was like, What fuck are you doing? Stop doing this! This is horrible.”

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On being the new girl:

“I got the call to audition on a Wednesday night for Thursday, then Friday I got a phone call and they said, ‘You're starting Monday.’ And I said ‘OK!’ Coming on as a newbie is always a scary thing. But it was just very like, Welcome to our family. I think that's exactly what Danielle Brooks said to me the first time she saw me. That was the attitude.

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Coming in with a bunch of us was really cool because we were all in it together. And not just because we were like literally in the same block because that's what was written for us, but just energetically like we were all so excited to be there and we weren't alone in it. I love the C-Block girls so much, their support is undying, no cattiness, no ego.”

On the fan reaction to Badison:

“I'm actually kind of hoping that they'll love to hate me. I know she's not the most likable character and she stirs shit up, but I really do think she's got a good heart and I hope that they can see that. Everyone on set was so supportive and just like, ‘We love you! You're so fucking funny! They’re going to love you!’ And I’m like, I don't know. They might do the opposite. People might hate me but that's my job. I just hope they love to hate me.”

On what Badison can teach us about dealing with bullies:

“Leading with compassion. The Little Prince is one of my favorite books, and there's a quote in it: Look with the heart. It's the hardest thing to do when facing adversity, still looking for the good in somebody, but if you can, then maybe you can make a connection and open them up and break that behavior.”

Ruben Chamorro

On OITNB’s famous no-makeup look:

“Freeing, so freeing. I mean I came off of doing a sitcom [Fuller also stars on Last Man Standing] and it's a very different world. It's all stage makeup and Spanx; it's a little bit more illusionary. But to be able to show up to work and just let it all hang and not worry about whatever it is your body is going through, which happens to be a lot for me right now—it was so necessary.

She's an unattractive person. And that's the opposite of what I've always been told I need to be.

And I've always been a no-makeup girl, yet to have it so closely exposed on HD film is a really scary thing. But there's just such a level of comfortability with everybody, such a support system and so much body positivity. It was a really therapeutic place for me to be and to not have to worry about looks at all and allow myself to be ugly.

We made my teeth even dirtier and more crooked than they already are and we added roots to my hair; the purpose was to make her not attractive. She's an unattractive person. And that's the opposite of what I've always been told I need to be to be an actor. I had a hard time getting used to that.

It's so a part of my DNA and how I trained my brain to present myself as an actor. Especially as a woman. Having to retrain my brain is very hard—I have the worst body dysmorphia. That's just like something I have to deal with every day so to be in an environment and have it be OK is just so necessary. And I hope more shows continue in that direction so that all the girls growing up don't have to retrain their brains.”



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Styled by Andrew Gelwicks; shirt and pants by Express; dress by Issey Miyake.

Jen Ortiz Deputy Editor, Cosmopolitan As deputy editor, Jen helps oversee Cosmopolitan's daily digital editorial operations, editing and writing features, profiles, essays, news, and more, in addition to regularly contributing to print.

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