If you haven’t seen Season 2 of Orange Is the New Black yet, there are spoilers ahead…you’ve been warned.
The newest character on this season of Orange Is the New Black, Brook Soso, made quite an impact on the inmate population. From her lack of showering to her hunger strike, actress Kimiko Glenn shared with Vulture what it was like to join the Netflix show and where she thinks her character’s storyline is going.
She explained how she trusts the writers to help develop her character, “I come from a theater background, so usually at the start you know what happens and where the character goes and everything. But with TV, it’s really unpredictable. And the writers are so unpredictable. I would get the script every week and be blown away, like, ‘Oh my God, that is not where I thought my character was going or what I would do.’ So I kind of gave up at a certain point trying to make up some of her backstory, because it wasn’t actually very helpful because it was usually way off.”
Along with her spunky character, the TV newcomer had a sex scene with Natasha Lyonne whose character, Nicky Nichols, has quite a bit of experience in that department.
Glenn described what that experience was like, “Well, I actually met her that day, and we had like a little van ride together to set, and she talked a bit about it and I was kind of asking her. I wasn’t really nervous about the whole nudity aspect, I was more nervous about sex on-camera, because I was like, I’ve never really had to do that. I’ve never done a sex scene before. And like, one where I’m talking throughout and all these things. And she was like, ‘Well, truly it’s the least sexual thing ever.’ You know, you’re thinking about A, B, and C, the technical things you have to execute in order to do this, and nobody wants you to feel uncomfortable, everyone kind of just wants to get it done. And, as bizarre as it sounds, after I saw the sex scene, I was like, ‘that was crazy, that was really intense.’ It is really sexual on the show! But at the time, it didn’t feel like majorly embarrassing or sexual, it was just kind of another thing that you were acting out and trying to execute A, B, and C.”
The one thing the young star has a true appreciation for is the way OITNB represents all types of women. For Glenn as an Asian-American actress, it’s important.
“It’s kind of interesting because, as an adult, I get a lot of material that’s more stereotypical, like secondary roles, or the funny sidekick, or the smart one, that type of thing. Or a lot of Asian prostitutes, or stuff like that. Which is always so much fun. But thinking back on it, I just really didn’t have very many role models to look up to when it came to Asian actresses. And in that way, when I would see an Asian onscreen, it would be a secondary-type thing, and that’s kind of how I ended up viewing myself in the world, as secondary,” she said. “That’s why diversity is so important and being represented is so important and telling all these people’s stories and having them be just as important as the pretty Caucasian girl or man. We’re in America. So I think its one of those things I really appreciate about Orange, and one of the things I really noticed and latched onto, which is that there’s so many different types of women.”
Season 3 of Orange Is the New Black will return to Netflix in 2015.
