At one moment in the new series of Orange is the New Black, Uzo Aduba’s character Suzanne grins at her supine cellmate Taystee (Danielle Brooks), her eyes wide, her unruly hair twisted into thick messy braids. “Aaand?” she asks excitedly. Taystee swings her legs onto the floor and, with a roll of her eyes, tells Suzanne that she did indeed call the public library for her and no, they couldn’t say if dragons are covered in feathers or scales.

Since her days of beating people up and urinating on the floor as a means of intimidation, the beloved character of Suzanne has blossomed into a capricious eccentric who flits between warmth, profundity and madness.

The real-life Aduba could scarcely be more different from the character – also known as Crazy Eyes – that has won her Emmy awards and Screen Actors Guild awards for two consecutive years. Sitting in an elegant meeting room in a five-star Berlin hotel, wearing a fitted pale pink dress, heels and a sleek, bobbed wig, the 35-year-old is poised and articulate.

The multi-award-winning US women’s prison drama was created by Weeds showrunner Jenji Kohan in 2013 and is not only Netflix’s most-watched series but has even been credited with changing the landscape of television thanks to its diverse ensemble cast of women of all ages, shapes and sizes.