A LifeMinute with Orange Is the New Black's Uzo Aduba

From prison to the Pearly Gates, Uzo Aduba is everywhere...

From the LifeMinute Team

January 7, 2015

The huge success of Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black is keeping one of the show's most popular breakout stars Uzo Aduba, a.k.a. Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren, super busy and in the spotlight. But that hasn't kept the actress from pursuing additional projects, including a new movie. "I have a film that I worked on in the spring. It's called Pearly Gates. That will be out this year," Aduba tells us, "I'm the assistant to the gentleman who's battling pancreatic cancer, and I work at his medical practice and help him get this project built that he's been striving to see done."

The role is a departure from women's prison inmate Crazy Eyes, the character for which Aduba is best known. "They describe her as being innocent like a child, except children aren't scary," says Aduba of her character, "I thought that was such a specific way to describe somebody locked up in prison. It just made this picture in my mind of a grown woman with a pacifier in her mouth with like, a sledgehammer in the other hand. ... There's an innocence about her. So whatever it is that might not really line up with what we're watching behind it, it's still soaked in an innocent."

And while style doesn't play as large a role on a show where the wardrobe for just about all of the cast members is literally uniform, Crazy Eyes' signature hair style brings an added dimension to the character and was an invention of the actress herself. Aduba explains, "I auditioned with my hair like that...I had done a piece and I just thought that I liked that hairstyle. And then...I just remember feeling at my audition, I thought, 'This feels right. I don't know. This just feels right.' She's in prison...Does she have the time [to do her hair]? Maybe she does or maybe this is her sign of describing herself, you know, the best way [to let you] know who she is very quickly."

Aduba is currently shooting Season Three of Orange Is the New Black; Netflix has yet to announce the release date for the new episodes.