Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox: 'Why do people want to murder us? Because we're trans and black'

Ahead of the arrival of season five of Orange is the New Black, Catherine Gee meets star Laverne Cox to chat about the fate of Poussey, police violence and her favourite OITNB moments

When Orange is the New Black’s fourth season ended last year, it left its audience in a state of trauma. Not only had it brutally killed off its most beloved character, Poussey Washington, in a storyline that mirrored the ongoing issue of police violence against black people in the US, but the prison in which the series is set was on the brink of a riot.

The issue of police violence and racism is one that could not be closer to Laverne Cox’s heart. For the 33-year-old, who plays transgender hairdresser Sophia Burset, it feels like everyday life, so often do stories of new victims emerge.

“Black folks are somehow more of a threat because we're black,” says Cox of the case of Philando Castile, whose girlfriend live streamed his death after he was shot by a white police officer in July 2016. “I feel somehow they feel justified because of their implicit racism. I think that police officer had to justify the taking of that life, by saying that his life was in danger. That's the only way that he could sleep at night. They didn't say [he felt threatened] 'because of my racism' but that's really what we're talking about.

"I was thinking about that Mike Brown grand jury testimony, when the officer who shot him said 'it [his face] looked like a demon'. That he saw an 18-year-old boy and said…” She goes quiet. “Anyway.”

When Poussey was killed in Orange is the New Black, it was by a white prisoner officer, albeit accidentally. But the dismissive approach that warden Caputo (Nick Sandow) took to the accident left the show’s characters incensed. The cast, too, were sad to discover that the actress Samira Wiley would be leaving the show. And it was something that Cox only discovered on the day that they filmed it.

“To be honest, I read the episode and I read all but the last page of it,” she explains. “I don't know why I didn't, but I knew my scenes and that I wasn’t in it. So I was sat in the make-up chair and was thinking, ‘oh I should read the last page of the episode’. So I did. Samira was actually sitting next to me.”

She recreates her shocked reaction of two years previously, looking from the page to Wiley. “I'm just like, 'what?!' I just started crying. Oh god, it's like it was yesterday. Samira was really chipper about the whole thing because she knew. But that's how I found out. I was devastated.”

One thing that OITNB has done an excellent job of is fostering empathy for characters that otherwise rarely receive any on screen. Here, flawed women from all walks of life are portrayed as fully formed people that are far more than the stereotypes that are usually so pervasive. And when it comes to being a trans activist, for Cox the experience has been an invaluable empathy tool.

“People are not just feeling for Sophia, who is a black trans woman, they are feeling for the actor Laverne who is also a black trans woman,” she explains. “And then also for the community that she represents that's in danger – because we're black and trans and people want to murder us for that reason. That's really what we need more of. To feel empathy for a person who's in a different circumstance to what we're in.”

Of course, some moments can hit a little too close to home. When, in season four, Sophia was beaten up by a gang of inmates, it was deeply difficult scene to film. “I know there were trans folks who had to stop watching because it was too real,” she says. “My family couldn't watch. So that was rough emotionally. It was rough physically. I was bruised up after the day.”

But the hard moments are offset by the great ones, and among Cox’s favourites are those when she gets to be a “badass”. In an early episode, as a way of forcing the prison authorities to let her see a doctor after she’s deprived of her hormones, she defiantly swallows a plastic bobblehead. The episode was one of two directed by Jodie Foster; it earned both Cox and and her director an Emmy nomination.

“Every single day that I got to work with Jodie Foster was a day that I treasured,” she says smiling. “Every time she opened her mouth, I was like I am going to listen to this woman because she's Jodie Foster. We got to do that bobblehead scene many times and I had a hard time swallowing it. They gave me a candy bobblehead but it wouldn't go down. We did it over 20 times.”

The new series is set over just three days of riot – which gave some cast members the opportunity to have scenes with other actresses that they don’t normally get to work with. For Cox, that meant getting to act opposite Uzo Aduba – the woman who beat her to the Emmy award in 2014.

“That was really wonderful,” she says. “The joy for me is watching great actors work and getting a glimpse of their process. When I started shooting [CBS legal drama] Doubt, I then came back and shot a few episodes of Orange so going back and forth so much I had to let go of perfectionism. It wasn't about being perfect. I over prepare for scenes and there was just not time. Uzo reaffirmed for me that you can find genius in imperfection.”

When I interviewed Aduba last year, she rightly pointed out that the inevitable questions about diversity should also be asked of the people who hold the power when it comes to hiring diverse casts or writers. And indeed, it is certainly rare to find a prominent transgender director, producer or writer (some headway has been made by Transparent’s Jill Soloway, who identifies as non-binary, and the Wachowskis but they hadn’t yet come out when they made their names in the industry). So, as someone who already has a degree of power in the media, is Cox interested in occupying one of those gatekeeper positions herself? The answer is a resounding “yes”.

“That's the thing that I'm most excited about now,” she gushes. “My long-term goal has always been to produce scripted content for myself. I've had forays into producing documentaries and whatnot and have a show idea and some films I want to do and I'm committed to finding the right collaborators to make these projects happen.

"I think I've been very blessed to be part of changing the narrative for trans folks in media and I've been able to do it through other people's work – which is incredible – but I think I can have even more of an impact creating my own work. So that's absolutely the next thing for me.”

Orange is the New Black season five arrives on Netflix on Friday June 9