[Minor season-two spoilers ahead] Everyone knows a friend like Brook Soso, the smelly activist who won't stop yapping about that book she just read on matriarchy in Papua New Guinea. Naive and self-involved, she's kind of the new Piper Chapman of Orange Is the New Black, except Brook has a cause — several of them. Once she breaks out of her frightened, tear-soaked shell, she winds up lobbying for better prison conditions. She goes on a hunger strike. She refuses to shower. She practices "passive resistance," eventually rallying other inmates to help her Occupy Litchfield. In between all this, the uber-liberal finds time to theorize about Ferris Bueller's Day Off ("This day off is really just a day off from his rigid coherence to mind-body alignment…"). Brook is annoying, sure, but with good intentions.

Cosmopolitan.com spoke to actress Kimiko Glenn about playing the new, Gandhi-loving "dirty hippie" (Pennsatucky's words), shooting a sex scene with everyone's fav prison wife Nicky, and why she wants to see more Asian Americans on TV.

When Brook tells Piper about the time she was "WWOOF-ing on a walnut farm in Xenia," I'm sure a lot of people had to Google that. Did you have to get familiar with her hippie-isms?

Yeah, to be honest, sometimes I had to go research what the heck she was even saying [laughs]. I'm like, what is WWOOFing? Willing Workers on Organic Farms. Walnut farm? [Laughs] I didn't know those existed, you know.

Apparently, the meaning of WWOOF has changed a few times. Now it's "World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms."

Oh, really? Interesting [laughs].

You're in more than half of the episodes in season two. How did you end up on the show?

I was doing theater before all this, and I had some experience with film and TV — I filmed a sitcom pilot. When I got the audition, I was actually watching episode five of the first season. You know how it kind of snowballs and you're like, Now I can't stop, I'm addicted? I was in the middle of that. After I finished, I paused and looked at [my agent's] email and it said: "Appointment for Orange Is the New Black." And I said, "Oh my god, wait!" I stared at it for a second because I thought I was seeing things. It was cool because I was watching, like, I would love to be on this show, but I would never be on this show because what part would there be for me in a prison?

What was your first impression of Brook?

I was like, Oh, I can play this. I can talk a lot, be kind of annoying. In a way, I relate to Brook a little bit because I'm into the whole natural health thing. I think a lot of us are into the social activist thing, what with news sites like Upworthy. I definitely don't talk as much as her [laughs].

What's the craziest health craze that you've tried?

Oh gosh, I've tried a few. The one I'm doing now, I guess in theory is pretty crazy, but I think a lot of people do it: I'm trying to not have any sugar or gluten and caffeine. Which is really hard for me because caffeine, gluten, and sugar, that's pretty much all I eat. I'm a carb-y person. I love pastries and whatnot. And I've been oil pulling [when you swish oil in your mouth]. And I did experiment with the whole not using deodorant. You know, there's that episode where I'm not showering. I got curious and I did try the lemon stuff. I didn't like it. It was weird squeezing a lemon and splashing it on your armpits. It just felt weird. But one thing I noticed is, obviously you smell when you don't put on deodorant. But after a certain period of time, you stop smelling. It's kind of amazing.

Brook comes across a little bit narcissistic. Is the activism genuine?

Honestly, I think it comes from her heart, but she can go about things the wrong way. The things she does, there's no way she's bluffing. I mean, she could just be talking about it, but the choice that I made was it came from an honest place and she did care about these things and truly believes these things. And she does want to make a difference. But she doesn't exactly catch onto social cues when people get annoyed with her [laughs].

There's a sex scene between Soso and Nicky. Did you have to mentally prepare?

I'm very comfortable with my body so I had a blast. And it's run by women, so there's Mama Bear, Lisa Vinnecour — she's the executive producer. She was making sure I was OK. She didn't want me to do anything I wasn't comfortable with. It was a closed set, just a couple camera dudes, and the director was watching it on a separate screen. All the people watching the screen were women, so I felt really taken care of. It wasn't one of those big, crazy things. I was more like, Oh god, my parents are going to see me do that!

Even then, Brook couldn't stop talking.

Yep [laughs].

You were in a Bleachers music video for "I Wanna Get Better."

I was, yes! It was Jen Euston, who cast Orange Is the New Black and Girls, who cast me. Lena Dunham [who directed the video] was working with Jen on casting. Jen showed Lena an audition video of mine, and Lena gave the go-ahead. I can't even speak highly enough about Lena. I mean, she was so sweet. When I think back on high school, I always tried to make silly videos with my friends. That's the vibe that she created. It was a very safe, friendly, playful vibe on that set. That was one of the most fun days I've had.

Your website has a few videos of you singing. What made you want to get into theater?

I was kind of an obnoxious kid. I would imitate Celine Dion. I would jump around and belt to the rafters and do the accent and everything [laughs]. I really loved to sing all the time, and I was constantly entertaining. Finally my dad saw an article in the local newspaper in Phoenix and it was for a children's theater, an audition for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. He was like, "Do you want to audition for that?" I was like, "Yes!" I ended up getting the part and that was my home: Valley Youth Theatre. I felt I was able to express myself in ways that I can't in life.

Orange is a great platform for minorities. How does Brook's character help as far as Asian-American representation, and do you think about it?

Absolutely. I think the original vision of the character was a blonde girl, and then they opened it up to Indian, and then it kind of landed on me somehow. But I think that was telling of how open Jenji [Kohan, the creator] is and the way in which we're thinking about it more. What I love about playing Brook is the fact that this is not an Asian stereotype. This is not like any character I've gone in for. I go in for a lot of the typical things you would think: the silly sidekick, the smart one, stuff like that. It is something I think about all the time. It's a conversation I ask my agents; I ask my managers. It's always a conversation because I do want to be playing parts that are human parts. And I love that they say that I'm Asian-American. I'm not "full Asian." I think Asians in general are underrepresented.

There isn't much representation at all, and your character is funny.

I get discouraged when I watch films. TV, I think, is getting a lot better, but I'll watch and it'll be primarily white and then a few African-American actors scattered in. As an Asian woman, I find that it's pretty difficult to break the boundary, you know, to come in and tell a story that isn't about being Asian. I think what would be completely ground-breaking is if there was some sort of film or TV show — or maybe there is, I don't know — where there is an Asian-American lead who wasn't about being Asian-American.

Photo Credit: Netflix

Clover Hope Clover Hope is a writer based in Brooklyn and the Culture Editor at Jezebel.

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