Warning: Spoilers for season 6 of Orange Is the New Black below.



Taylor Schilling is on the top floor of The Standard Hotel, in a room overlooking the East Village. Clad in a robe, gold under-eye masks in place, the actress is arranging a dog sitter—she lives in Brooklyn so it wasn't too hard to get here, she says, as a nail artist asks her to untuck her feet for a swipe of polish. If this were another celebrity, I might comment that this is the most undone I've ever seen her—chatting casually with her hair untouched and no makeup on. But for Schilling, this is actually more glamour than audiences might be used to, considering her work for the past six seasons as Piper Chapman on gritty Netflix series Orange Is the New Black—a show that helped change the landscape of television and made Schilling a household name.

Six seasons—that's six years. “That's the predominant thought running through my mind every time I think about the show right now," the 34-year-old actress says with quiet awe. "Six years. It’s so hard to wrap my head around that.”

It doesn't feel like so long ago that we were introduced to the ragtag women of Litchfield Penitentiary. OITNB premiered in July 2013, featuring multiple lesbian and bisexual characters, along with Sophia Burset, one of the most prominent trans characters on television to date (Laverne Cox's breakout role). Gay marriage was legalized across the United States in 2015.

But America has changed a lot since then. While LGBTQ representation on television was making strides, the cultural landscape backslid in other ways. In January 2016, Donald Trump became president of the United States. In October 2017, the #metoo movement went viral after more than 50 women came forward with allegations against Harvey Weinstein, furthering a conversation about how men in power, across many industries, abuse women. Schilling has plenty to say about that.

"It’s so re-traumatizing to have a perpetrator in The White House. It’s a daily assault."

“I think it speaks to the point, that we can have a sexual predator running the free world held up against stories we’re telling of women who have been assaulted and violated in a million different iterations," Schilling leans forward; she's passionate about this. "I think that that’s the beauty of this show—it plays out far behind the headlines so you can see the impact of sexual assault in a woman’s life. And I hope in some small way it might somehow bring even starker relief…the criminality of Trump, and the depth of his violence toward women."

Orange Is the New Black, one of Netflix's most-watched shows, has grappled with the evils of privatized prisons, injustices against the trans community, and police brutality. So it's unsurprising for it to tackle another issue that's nationally and politically resonant. "It’s so retraumatizing to have a perpetrator in The White House," she says. "It’s a daily assault. I think the show deals with that on so many levels and in so many storylines." In particular, there's the plight of Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning), who's forced to continually interact with her rapist, a correctional officer—and the relationship turns into something resembling Stockholm Syndrome.

Not many of these topics or this pain really touch Piper—if they ever really did. In season 5, she spent most of her time on the sidelines, something of a stand-in for the viewer, commenting on the wild goings-on of the riot that ensued after the wrongful death of Poussey (Samira Wiley) at the hands of a prison guard. This season ends with her wedding to Alex and a surprise early release. This makes it that much harder to feel relief for Piper, who is often naively ignorant at best, or full-on malevolent at worst. (Remember how drunk on power she got in the panty ring era?)

Taylor Schilling as Piper Chapman in Orange is the New Black JoJo Whilden / Netflix

Schilling feels the same way. "I tried for years to love Piper," she says. "You know what I mean? And it’s confusing." There's a weight to that statement: Schilling never got there. I try to compare Piper to Breaking Bad's beloved anti-hero Walter White—who started a life of crime to take care of his family—and she cuts me off.

"Walter White was interesting because his actions, in a horrific way, were always somewhat justified. There were always these heightened circumstances and such heightened needs, you know? He always had a reason," she argues. Whereas, she says, "Piper’s behavior oftentimes feels groundless"—that may be why it's harder for people to connect with her. "The audience can’t quite grab onto Piper’s behavior. It seems like it’s coming out of nowhere."

As we learned with Taystee (Danielle Brooks), who returned to Litchfield after violating her parole, being released from prison doesn't necessarily mean you're out for good. But there's something that feels more final with Piper's farewell. Schilling seems tired. She asks me if I've read Equal Justice Initiative lawyer Bryan Stevenson's book, . "This man worked with the furthest-lying outliers in our culture—men who are on death row and have been cast aside—and talks about how people are not to be judged on their worst moments, but their best," she says. "I think about that with Piper, because I’ve often thought that some of the twists and turns we’ve made in the course of this show aren’t particularly redeeming."

"I tried for years to love Piper."

So, is Piper worthy of our forgiveness and mercy? "I think people are always redeemable," Schilling says, before dropping in a caveat. "I think that’s confusing about Piper for me. As an actor, you can always love a character. You can love a murderer when you understand where they’re coming from. And I think it’s hard to understand where Piper is coming from.”

The way Schilling speaks about the character she's spent six years with is almost wistful; I wonder if there's an end in sight for Orange Is the New Black. The actress exhales, then almost laughs. “Yes. Of course. I don’t think I can say exactly when, but we’re coming up on it,” she says. She, at least, has her eyes on a future post-Litchfield. "I love loving the humans that I play. I’m excited to tell different stories, of people that I love. It’s not about a fairy princess," she clarifies, "it's about people whose choices I understand. Yeah, I feel like I’m chomping at the bit to express something different."

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Just don't expect to see her in the director's chair anytime soon. “I don’t see myself as one, but a great director is what makes me feel like I can work," Schilling says. "That’s what I want to do after this—keep finding directors I feel inspired by and who feel inspired by me.”



Conflicted feelings and all, what does Schilling want for her longtime Orange character? “There’s this very intense self-centeredness that’s emerged in the past couple years that doesn’t line up with just that girl we met—the one who was so in love with her girlfriend that she committed a stupid crime," says the actress, looking out the window over at the city. "She’s transmuted into a selfish, manipulative character I can’t really get my head around," she sighs. "I’d love to see Piper rewind back into that space with all of the knowledge she has about how corrupt the prison system is, much like the real Piper Kerman. To do something to give back, to change, or to at least offer support to the suffering that she now intimately knows." Schilling doesn't need redemption for Piper Chapman—perhaps just closure, a chance to understand, before saying goodbye.

Orange Is the New Black is streaming on Netflix now.



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Emily Tannenbaum Entertainment Editor Emily is the entertainment editor at Cosmopolitan, which is a nice way of saying she watches way too much TV and constantly wants to tell you about it.

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