“Orange Is the New Black's” Laura Prepon Knew the Show Would Be a Hit

Jill Greenberg/Netflix(NEW YORK) — Laura Prepon is back as Alex in season three of Orange Is the New Black. The actress said she knew the show, centered on a women’s federal prison in Connecticut, would be a hit when her agent first sent her the script.

Prepon said on Tuesday’s Live with Kelly and Michael that originally, she’d sworn off TV roles after the failure of the series Are You There, Chelsea?, which lasted only one season.

“And the script came along and he gave it to me and I said, ‘It’s TV! I’m not reading it’,” Prepon said, referring to ger agent.  “And he’s like, ‘Laura, I know you! You have to read the script.’ And I read it and I called him and I said, ‘I have to be part of the show. What do we do?'”

Prepon plays the role of the lesbian love interest of Taylor Schilling, who plays Piper Kerman, whose book of the same name was the inspiration for the series.

Prepon said the current third season of Orange Is the New Black may be her favorite.

“When you first start a show, you have to introduce all the characters and everybody has to really get to know you. And then second season, you have to kind of reiterate it a little bit of who everybody is and what the relationships are,” she explained. “I feel like on season three, we can just tell stories and we can just be our characters. It’s incredible. And I feel like our writers are so amazing. Season three is definitely one of my favorite seasons.”

Thanks in part to those writers, Orange Is the New Black has become a hit around the globe. Prepon shared that she recently returned from Germany, where she promoted the show with co-stars Schilling and Uzo Aduba. Prepon said billboards pushing the show there were a tad different. After asking locals what the translation meant, the ladies learned their show had been re-named “Screw Off Is the New Hello.”

Orange Is the New Black is available now on Netflix.

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