Samira Wiley and Uzo Aduba look at how Orange is the New Black changed their lives. Photo / Claire Merchlinsky, The New York Times
In a conversation, the actors look back on how Orange Is the New Black changed their lives and discuss their Emmy-nominated roles in The Handmaid's Tale and Mrs. America.
Eight years ago, Samira Wiley and Uzo Aduba were struggling New York actors working service jobs when they auditioned for a new series from a movie-rental service-turned-streaming site called Netflix.
After Orange Is the New Black premiered in the summer of 2013, they found themselves at the centre of both a new hit show and a TV sea change, as Netflix continued its evolution into an industry-reshaping force.
This year, Netflix set an Emmy record with 160 total nominations, and Wiley and Aduba received nods of their own. Wiley was nominated for best supporting actress in a drama for playing feminist lesbian activist Moira in Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, her third nomination for the role. Aduba is up for best supporting actress for playing pioneering congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, who ran for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1972, in FX's limited series Mrs. America.
"For actors, it's not a given that you get a part on a show where, No. 1, it's an amazing part, and, No. 2, it's a show that people watch," Wiley said. "I don't know how it's happened that both the shows that I was on have permeated the zeitgeist, but it's amazing."
The triumph of Orange Is the New Black was due partly to the tapestry of its diverse cast; Aduba and Wiley, playing Black queer characters, were fan favourites. Aduba won two Emmys for her affectionate and affable take on Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren. (Thanks to her indelible performance and a shift in the Emmy classification rules, she won awards for the role in both the comedy and drama categories.) Wiley's truehearted, androgynous Poussey Washington was so beloved that some viewers stopped watching the show after her character was killed by a prison guard at the end of Season 4 — Aduba among them.
"It made me too sad," Aduba said during a recent Zoom call with Wiley. Aduba said she cried when she read the final line of the script, which described Poussey offering her signature smile one last time.
As Season 5 was being shot, Wiley remembered calling Aduba or another castmate, and they'd be together on set. "It was really hard in the beginning when all of them were still there," she said
The actors' mutual affection was apparent during the call in late August. What began as an interview about the Emmys quickly turned into Aduba and Wiley interviewing each other about Orange and how it helped to shape their careers, their approaches to new roles and themselves. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: How does it feel to be nominated again? Is it still as exciting as the first few times?
SAMIRA WILEY: It still feels amazing to me. An Emmy is the highest thing that you can aspire to in our line of work. This time is no different.
UZO ADUBA: The morning of, I was on the phone with (her nominated Mrs. America co-stars Margo Martindale and Tracey Ullman), and they were equally excited. Tracey has like 95 Emmys; Margo the same. I also think there's an element of realising — Samira and myself, I know for sure — that there was a lifetime of famine. The appreciation is there. It's not like it was 50 years ago when I used to work at that restaurant. We can touch that time.
WILEY: And for you, Uzo, being nominated for a completely different role, I imagine that feels different.
ADUBA: It felt good. It was the same feeling I felt when I got the job, where I was like, "Thank God I'm not not going to work again." I'm being 100 per cent honest — that was the feeling.
WILEY: It felt amazing to just get a job. When I wanted to be an actor, it wasn't like I was little and looking at TV seeing people everywhere that looked like me. And I think it started with Orange, because it felt like a real departure from having this idealised woman on television, going all the way back from the age of, like, Leave It to Beaver. Where there's this unattainable beauty and perfection rather than having women that you're like, "Oh, that's me. That's my auntie. That's my mom."
ADUBA: I hear you on the Orange of it all and the specialness of that — people who were not getting space now getting space. Now shows are getting made for women and people of colour, and they're hitting the zeitgeist in a way that's powerful. Partly because of the social climate, but also because there is something recognisable.
WILEY: Also, the relevancy of the shows. Like Mrs. America — we're living in a time where we actually have a Black woman vice-presidential candidate (Senator Kamala Harris). And The Handmaid's Tale — we know the parallels there.
ADUBA: It's like Mrs. America is the story of our history, right? The expression goes, "Learn your history or you're doomed to repeat it." And The Handmaid's Tale is showing us what our future could be, if we don't learn from our past.
WILEY: Right now, I'm all about trying to get people to register to vote and trying to focus on the differences between what's happening (in Gilead) and what's happening here. After playing Shirley, what do you think about Kamala? (Shirley) is such an iconic character, to be able to bring to life beautifully as you did.
ADUBA: When you stop to think about what this woman chose to do with her life — and more specifically when, because think about how powerful it is today to see Senator Harris. This woman was doing this almost 50 years ago! It just makes you understand the mettle that this woman was made of — that was so meaningful to me, and really humbling. There's another generation of people who get to think differently about themselves.
Q: Let me ask you: What is it like to have now been part of two culture-shaping stories?
WILEY: Playing Poussey, getting to know her — I spent four years with her, and I was so in touch with the things that she taught me. She's so loyal. Her moral centre is so centered; it's immovable. That show helped me understand the kind of person I want to be. And Moira is someone who taught me to embrace my activism; to be a champion for the LGBT community, to be a champion for the Black community and to not be afraid to speak up. It's such a gift to be able to have lived with these women, to be able to shape who Samira is.
ADUBA: Did they shape Samira? Or do you think Samira shaped them as well?
WILEY: I remember being in school, trying to create a character and telling my teacher I couldn't access something. I will never forget what my teacher said: "Well, it's nobody up there but you." You can't create something up there out of nothing; it lives within you somewhere. So that's always in my head: It has to come from me. But these people, it's almost like therapy. Having internal conversations with Moira and Poussey has made me aware of these things that are deep inside me that I am now comfortable bringing to light.
Q: Something you just did, which I have never done and would love to do one day — and now you're nominated for an Emmy for it — is bringing an actual woman to life. Is it fulfilling in a different way?
ADUBA: There's space for invention still. Obviously there's dramatic license with certain scenes, and there's getting the exterior right — key elements of who Shirley was, in terms of having listened to her speeches. "Why?" is always the first question: Why are we doing this? Why am I doing this? Because there's gallons of footage of Shirley Chisholm, so why do we need an actor to do it?
So I was watching this documentary called Unbought and Unbossed, and in the last 10 minutes there's one scene where she's releasing her (Electoral College) delegates. She lets them go, she's backstage, and she just collapses into her hands and starts crying. You could feel the weight of something in her tears, and I remember thinking, "That's the real Shirley Chisholm." I want to tell that person's story, when she goes home and she's not carrying the expectations of everyone in Bed-Stuy, and all the Blacks in America and all of the women in this caucus who are excited to have a woman as president. She clearly has a different idea for who she is in the world than these limited definitions the world holds for her — I'm interested in getting to the bottom of that.
It's almost like a photograph in Mrs. America, whereas we get to watch the full journey of Moira. What is it like watching her grow, watching her expand?
WILEY: When I was at Orange, everything was so new. Like, I wouldn't be having too many conversations with writers. I just wanted to be in the back, grateful and thankful. And now I'm in a place where I feel very comfortable being able to have conversations about Moira and where she's going, where I want her to go. Where is she soft? Who does she save her quiet moments for? Who does she talk to?
Being able to tell this whole story and having a conversation with the writing team about where I want this character to go shows me, which then shows our viewers, that my story is important; therefore your story is important. I'm very interested in the idea, and the truth, that Black people are not one thing — not only are we not one thing, but we're a whole bunch of things even within one person. So I'm looking forward to being able to go all the different places that Moira can go.
Written by: Trish Bendix
Photographs by: Claire Merchlinsky
© 2020 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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