Samira Wiley

“I'm actual thankful for the amount of responsibility that has been handed to me. I feel very honored.”

“I'm definitely caught up in the Kool-Aid of true-crime stories.”

“I really want to play a superhero. I want to take the role-model thing up a notch. I've always been a fan of movies and TV, and to be able to play the ultimate TV superhero would be awesome.”

“I never want to pigeonhole myself or get typecast. I'm looking forward to my career and showing all of my range as an actress, and I'm looking at other mediums, too. I'm a theater actress first. And I cannot wait to return to the stage.”

“I'm very unpopular for my dislike of this food, but I've never liked avocado. Everyone gives me so much flack for it because they tell me how healthy it is for me, how delicious it is. I don't like it, but it's not for lack of trying. I tried to like it, and it's just not my thing.”

“I grew up in the church.”

“When you're in prison, the progress of the outside world doesn't necessarily translate inside prison walls. You don't have any rights; it just doesn't progress along the same timeline.”

“Poussey is a really huge part of 'Orange,' and I'm sure her name will always echo through the halls of Litchfield, dead or alive.”

“For a New York actor, there are two things you look forward to - getting your SAG card and being on 'Law and Order.'”

“I'd never played a character as long as I played Poussey. Spending time with her, so much time embodying that character, it was so - and still is and always will be - so special to me and a part of who I am.”

“The actors that I admire are able to step into so many different roles.”

“Whether you watch 'Law and Order' all the time or not, everyone knows what it looks like. Everyone knows what the courtroom looks like, what the police precinct looks like.”

“When I was younger in the theater, I didn't really feel like I got much recognition from the powers that be. I got a lot of small roles - I never got the standout roles.”

“'Orange Is the New Black' was my home show. I knew the set; I knew everyone there.”

“I was obsessed with Lil' Bow Wow growing up, and you couldn't see the white of my walls because they were plastered with his photos. This is even more embarrassing: I had a notebook full of facts about Bow Wow and different pictures. I basically made a biography notebook about him and his life when he was, like, 13.”

“I come from a theater background, and if you're doing a play, your audience is right there, and you're able to have that one-on-one experience. Doing more TV now, when fans come up to me on the street and talk to me on social media, that's a way to bridge that gap.”

“Playing a character for four years, in people's minds, that's who you are.”

“Before Juilliard, I was a schoolteacher for a little bit. I taught in a charter school. I was a substitute teacher for kids ages 3 to 6.”

“We can climb mountains with self-love.”

“I want to make sure that any young person or anyone, really, who is looking up to me - who sees a glimpse of who I am as a person - that they see no shame, that they see pride, and that I'm truly unabashed about the person that I am.”