50 Fun Facts About Orange is the New Black

On which streaming service did Orange Is the New Black premiere in 2013?

It became the platform's most-watched original series, and by 2016 also its longest-running.

Who created Orange Is the New Black?

Kohan had previously created Weeds for Showtime, another series built around a suburban woman drawn into the drug trade.

The series is based on a memoir by which real woman?

Her book was subtitled My Year in a Women's Prison and came out in 2010, three years before the show.

What is the name of the fictional prison where most of the series is set?

Litchfield is a real town in New York, but it has no federal prison; the show simply borrowed the name.

How long is Piper's original prison sentence?

The real Piper Kerman got the same 15-month sentence and served 13 of them.

What crime landed Piper in prison?

The offence happened roughly a decade before the show begins, after which Piper had built a quiet, law-abiding life in New York.

Who plays Piper Chapman?

She was the first actor cast, in August 2012, and earned Golden Globe nominations in both the comedy and drama categories for the role.

Which actress was the show creator's original choice for Piper before other commitments got in the way?

Kohan met with her to discuss the part before it went to Taylor Schilling.

Laura Prepon ended up as Alex, but which role did she originally audition for?

Kohan felt Prepon had a toughness that meant viewers would never worry about her in prison, so she was given the drug-smuggling ex-girlfriend instead.

Which character named Piper in her testimony, leading to Piper's arrest?

The two are reunited inside Litchfield and spend seven seasons in an on-again, off-again relationship.

Who plays Piper's fiancé Larry Bloom?

Biggs was the second actor cast, right after Schilling; he was written out as a regular after season two.

Which Star Trek: Voyager captain plays kitchen boss Galina 'Red' Reznikov?

Mulgrew commanded the USS Voyager for seven seasons before spending another seven running Litchfield's kitchen.

What nationality is Red, the inmate who runs the prison kitchen?

She also acts as the behind-the-scenes leader of the prison's white inmates, and gives addicts only two strikes because 'Russians don't play baseball.'

Which character earns the nickname 'Crazy Eyes'?

Uzo Aduba originally read for the part of Janae Watson before being offered Suzanne instead.

What pet name does Suzanne give Piper because of her blonde hair?

Other inmates have their own labels for Piper: Pennsatucky calls her 'College' and Tricia calls her 'Brain'.

Uzo Aduba is one of two actors with comedy and drama Emmys for the same role. Who is the other?

Aduba won as a guest actress in comedy in 2014 and as a supporting actress in drama in 2015 after the Emmys reclassified hour-long shows as dramas.

Why was the show forced to switch from the comedy to the drama Emmy categories in 2015?

That made it the first series ever nominated in both the comedy and drama categories.

Who plays Tasha 'Taystee' Jefferson?

Brooks later earned an Oscar nomination for The Color Purple; Taystee's story about foster care and Vee's heroin business is one of the show's central arcs.

Which actress played Poussey Washington in Orange Is the New Black and later starred in The Handmaid's Tale?

Wiley heard about the auditions from a Juilliard friend who was writing for the show.

Which corrections officer accidentally kills Poussey in season four?

Her death, after a peaceful cafeteria protest, is the spark for the three-day riot that fills season five.

Roughly how long does the season-five prison riot last?

Some critics disliked spending an entire season on such a short window; the SERT team ends it by raiding the prison.

Which character runs the prison kitchen's drug-smuggling operation before Red frames him for it?

Pablo Schreiber's guard was a recurring role from October 2012 that earned him an Emmy nomination.

Which season-two antagonist beats Red with a padlock inside a sock?

Lorraine Toussaint's Yvonne 'Vee' Parker won a Critics' Choice award for the role, which lasted a single season.

Who plays Nicky Nichols, Red's most trusted assistant?

It was Lyonne's first television job as a series regular; she went on to co-create Russian Doll.

Which character was Nicky's actress originally going to audition for?

Casting director Jen Euston said Kohan knew Lyonne 'could do Nicky with her eyes closed.'

Which real-life transgender actress plays Sophia Burset?

Cox's identical twin brother, M Lamar, played the pre-transition Sophia in flashbacks.

Which milestone did Sophia's actress reach in 2014 thanks to the role?

She was also the first transgender nominee for any Emmy since composer Angela Morley in 1990.

What is the nickname of Tiffany Doggett, played by Taryn Manning?

Manning was offered the role outright rather than auditioning; the character's arc runs from religious zealot to one of the show's most tragic figures.

Which corrections officer fathers Daya's baby?

Matt McGorry played John Bennett as a recurring character from 2013 to 2015 before leaving for How to Get Away with Murder.

Which Piper business venture in season three smuggles goods out of prison via a friendly guard?

She recruited inmates to wear them and paid them at first in ramen seasoning packets, until Flaca threatened a strike.

Which words does Piper have tattooed on her arm by new inmate Stella Carlin?

Ruby Rose's Stella turned out to be using again, and Piper had her shipped to Max — a taste of how ruthless season-three Piper became.

Which real-life media personality is inmate Judy King loosely based on?

Blair Brown played the celebrity chef, who gets private quarters and privileges the other inmates resent.

Who plays inmate Lolly Whitehill, the conspiracy-theory obsessive who thinks Aydin is a government agent?

Petty first appeared as a guest star in season two before recurring in seasons three, four and seven.

Which corrections officer (Brad William Henke) kidnaps and tortures Red's group in the riot?

Red discovers he had boiled an inmate alive at his previous prison; he is killed by the raiding team at the end of season five.

Where do many of the inmates, including Piper and Alex, end up after the riot?

Season six introduces a gang war between C Block and D Block, run by feuding sisters Carol and Barb Denning.

A large part of the final season takes place in what kind of facility?

The storyline follows detainees with almost no access to outside help, and brings back Maritza and Blanca.

Who wrote and performs the show's theme song, 'You've Got Time'?

Kohan had listened to Spektor's albums obsessively while writing the series; the song was Grammy-nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media.

The title sequence shows close-ups of real former prisoners. Which one is the real Piper?

The faces are all non-actors who had served time; Kerman's cameo is easy to miss.

In what kind of former building was the show filmed?

The Rockland Children's Psychiatric Center in Rockland County, New York, opened in 1970 and had closed by 2010.

At which real federal prison did the author of the original memoir serve her sentence?

She served 13 months there starting in 2004; reality star Teresa Giudice would later do time at the same facility.

In the original memoir, the ex-girlfriend who inspired Alex Vause is given which pseudonym?

Her real name is Catherine Cleary Wolters, a heroin dealer tied to an alleged Nigerian drug kingpin.

How much was the show's per-episode budget estimated to be?

Kohan called Piper a 'trojan horse' — a way to sell a show that would really be about people TV rarely portrayed.

Which radio host turned down a role as a public radio host on the show?

The part went to Robert Stanton instead, playing the fictional host Maury Kind.

How many seasons did Orange Is the New Black run?

Netflix announced in October 2018 that the seventh season would be the last; it arrived on July 26, 2019.

In 2017, what happened to the first ten episodes of season five before their release?

The breach hit a post-production company; Netflix refused to pay and the episodes went online early.

Which character, played by Alysia Reiner, is exposed for embezzlement with help from Piper and Caputo?

Reiner and Abigail Savage, who plays Gina, had both originally auditioned for Alex Vause.

Which earlier streaming original did Orange Is the New Black beat in first-week viewership?

The streamer said it drew more viewers and hours in week one than both House of Cards and the revived Arrested Development.

How did Jenji Kohan describe Piper Chapman's function in the series?

Piper let the show focus on characters whose demographics were rarely represented on TV.

Yael Stone first auditioned for which role before being asked to read for Lorna Morello?

Casting director Jen Euston felt she was not 'tough enough' for that part.

How many Emmy nominations did the series receive for its first season?

It won three, and was later the first series nominated in both comedy and drama categories.