Samira Wiley

“I didn't do 'Orange' because I knew it was good. I wanted to do this because it feels good. And I just knew that was the place I needed, wanted to be.”

“To be honest, whenever I go to shoots, or I'm on set, it really makes makeup special and allows me to have so much more fun with it - I don't wear it on an everyday basis, because I like my skin to breathe.”

“I think that therapy is great and can be incredibly helpful.”

“The way it works at Julliard is that you just perform with people who are in your own class.”

“I eat a lot. I probably eat more than anybody that I know. I'll go on set and get a plate of bacon, a bagel, an omelet, boiled eggs, fresh fruit, oatmeal, fresh juice, potatoes, basically anything that's there. I don't mean that I alternate between these things. I'll eat all of this for breakfast.”

“I think that all stereotypes sort of begin with truth. I think that the only problem is if that's the only place that you go.”

“I think of the prisoners on 'Orange Is the New Black,' a lot of times, as uplifting.”

“Like any actor, I want to be able to have a long career and show different characters and a range.”

“I'm a big lover of Shakespeare. In fact, the only plays that I've ever done professionally in New York have been Shakespearian.”

“It's one thing to live my own life and know that I'm O.K. But there's another thing I want to take on, and that is letting people know that they're O.K., too.”

“I remember when I got into Juilliard - which was just crazy to me, that I would be studying at a school like that - the choice to cut all my hair off was really symbolic for me.”

“It is television; we're making television at the end of the day. It's all smoke and mirrors, and it's all fake, but it's not, because it makes people really feel things that are real.”

“I've seen my parents dragged through the mud. But I wouldn't be the person I am today without them.”

“There was this girl who went to my school, and she did a Nikki Giovanni poem, 'Ego Tripping,' and it was just different from everyone else's. It wasn't flat recitation. It had an energy and a life to it. And it made me sit up in my seat, and my eyes got wide, and I really felt inside myself, 'She's making me feel things. I want to do that.'”

“I was a good bartender. I wouldn't say I was the best bartender in New York, but I could hold my own.”

“I do get recognized, more and more every day.”

“My mom is super fabulous, and I remember her telling me at 13, 'You can start wearing makeup now.' And the funny thing is, I didn't take her up on it!”

“I have a responsibility as a potential role model that I take very seriously.”

“There's a play that Chekhov wrote called 'Uncle Vanya,' and I when I was in school, I played Sonya, and sometimes people ask me if there was ever a role I could play again, that's definitely the role I would play again: Sonya in 'Uncle Vanya.'”

“My mother, actually, is a therapist.”