Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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Golden Globe nominee and Boston native Taylor Schilling breaks out her prison coveralls for an even more suspenseful season of Orange is the New Black. BY GRETCHEN VOSS PHOTOGR APHY BY R ANDALL SLAVIN O h. My. God. Taylor Schilling had that same gut- wrenching reaction to the final scene in Netf lix's breakout original series Orange is the New Black as all the rabid fans out there binge-watching the prison dramedy last season. Collective jaws dropped as Schilling's formerly prissy character, Piper Chapman, completely—not to mention, vio- lently—loses it. "It was pretty spectacular," says the 29-year-old Massachusetts native by phone from her home in New York. Netf lix subscribers are hungering to see what the new season—available for streaming June 6—serves up next. It's been a delicious feast so far, fol- lowing along good-girl-gone-bad Piper, a WASPy Smith College grad who peddles artisanal soap and is engaged to an earnest young fellow. She gets sentenced to 15 months in prison for a crime she committed 10 years ago (that would be laundering money for her sexy older girlfriend, who was part of an international drug ring). "The thing that is so exciting to me about this show is the arc that they've given Piper," Schilling says. "She's dancing really fast, trying to be who she thinks the world thinks she should be, but now she's forced to look at what's really happening inside of her." That dance has been a thrill to watch, as Schilling believably two-steps from a wide-eyed ingénue to a come- hither seductress to a broken-down woman unleashing 13 episodes of rage on a born-again hillbilly. Perhaps the reason that the show has never crumbled under over-the- top clichés is that Schilling really gets her character. "She makes a lot of sense to me. I always think there's that negotiation between what you think you need to be for the outside world and what your own honest experience is," Schilling says. "I cer- tainly think I'm on that quest myself; I relate to that. She has to figure out how to play by her own rules. That's an interesting journey people go on whether or not they're in prison. That's kind of what life is about." S chilling's life—which has propelled her from the Boston 'burbs to being a Hollywood It girl—is a tes- tament to not following a set of preordained rules, which is notable in a hypercompetitive region where kids plan out their PhDs in elemen- tary school. "I just kind of do things and show up without thinking about it that much. Then I look back and BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM 95 094-097_BC_F_Coverstory_LSpring14.indd 95 4/4/14 2:47 PM