Taylor Schilling on ‘Orange is the New Black’ and the LGBT community

Taylor Schilling, the lead actress on the Netflix hit series Orange is the New Black, thoroughly enjoys working on the creative, comedic drama. The face behind Piper Chapman is grateful about the show’s open-minded nature, allowing men and women to be seen in different ways.

Schilling said: “It’s important that the series has been able to reflect issues that are vital to the LGBT community. As well as issues regarding prison life. Another thing that is very meaningful is that [Orange] allows women to be presented in different ways and shows so many different aspects of our nature.”

Her acting, she believes, should always give her character justice. “But when I’m working on set, I’m not thinking about any of those things, really. I try to focus on Piper and do justice to the character above everything else.”

She also feels the series is successful by gaining the interest of audiences that are often drawn to stories driven by lead characters and cast members that are male. In a recent interview with Diva magazine, she added, “Our series has shown that audiences are just as interested in women’s stories as in predominantly male-driven stories.”

The 31-year-old also admitted in previous interviews that she finds it liberating to play a character who wears very little make-up, adding: “I think it’s very liberating to [play a character who doesn’t wear makeup]. It knocks away one level of artifice, and I think that is what I appreciate most about acting. It’s trying to drill down to the truth of a character, or situation or a circumstance and in some cases, lots of makeup helps with that. In this situation, in the story of Piper Chapman, it really illuminates interesting parts of her that she doesn’t wear any makeup.”