Rookie Mistake

With each episode focusing on a different life story, the show provides contextual curveballs in the form of edifying flashbacks: “It’s about showing women for who they are,” says Samira Wiley, who, as the smiley Poussey Washington, adds much-needed levity to the grim environs. In the words of Kate Mulgrew, matriarchal head chef Galina “Red” Reznikov: “These are not mass murderers. These are women who tripped—some just slipped on a banana peel.” Dayanara Diaz (Dascha Polanco), pregnant with a prison guard’s baby, is the show’s off-its-axis moral compass, while Lorna Morello (Yael Stone) feigns normalcy with a dubious-sounding fiancé—and her trademark red lip. “A lot of us put together a look as a shield,” the Australian native says. “That Natalie Wood fantasy is quite strong for her.”



It was a long-ago decision—to launder money at the behest of her then cartel-kingpin girlfriend—that landed the show’s lead, the preppy, engaged-to-a-guy Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), behind bars. As she learns to deflect unsolicited romantic advances, pint-size bullies, and her locked-up ex, Alex, a grittier Piper emerges: “She’d had it up to here,” Schilling says of season one’s shocking cliff-hanger. “It’s fun to play a character with such a dramatic shift.”



On Schilling: Dress, Christopher Kane; bracelets, Bulgari and De Beers.