Adrienne C. Moore – Orange Is The New Black

By: Lisa Steinberg

Q) What are the recent projects you are working on?

A) Right now, I’m currently doing Taming of the Shrew with Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theatre. We’re doing an all female production of Taming of the Shrew in New York and it has been the ride of a lifetime. We’re a bunch of women playing men. It’s going to be outdoors so we have any number of things happening at any time. It has been a thrill to say the least.

Q) We have seen some great posts on social media with you and co-star Cush Jumbo.

A) Cush is my roommate. We share a dressing room together and we have quickly become sisters.

Q) We are picking up with our favorite Litchfield ladies with a small bit of freedom. Where do we pick up and how long has it been?

A) One thing I love about our show is that we pick right back up where we left off. We have a new inmate coming in out of nowhere. We have new people who are coming in and trying to take over. It’s literally a battle of the wills going on this season.

Q) Every season has one big bad guy. Who will be the villain this year?

A) Well, I think that’s the interesting thing about our show. Sometimes it can be a person. Sometimes it can be a thing – like last year the villain was the for profit prisons. We deal with that in this season. It is not necessarily a person, but something that is causing everyone to have an uprising. Everything is going to change in a major way this season. So, I wouldn’t say it was one person in particular. It’s an amalgamation of so many things.

Q) What are some of the themes that we will explore this season?

A) I would say that we definitely continue dealing with racism in a big way this season. With all the new inmates that are coming in, there is always someone vying to be the top dog. So, you have that whole mixture bubbling to the surface. We are also digging deeper and deeper into for profit prisons. In particular, with Black Cindy, now that she has become Jewish she has a new name. She goes by “Tovah.” She is dealing with having this new awakening of faith and spirituality, but also being tied with things that are familiar to her for some years like being a racist, funny, always looking to get over on people so to speak. So, we stick with that this season and then there is someone she has an immediate beef with this season. We’ll see how she deals with that this season.

Q) What has the response been from fans to Black Cindy’s conversion?

A) I feel like I’ve been so welcomed when she became Jewish. She gained a whole new fanbase of people and I couldn’t be happier.

Q) What have you learned about not just Judaism, but the different religious aspects the show has explored?

A) It is interesting because I have been going through my own spiritual journey like Cindy since I was a kid. I grew up in a very Christian household and when I went to college I was very involved in the religious ministry on campus. Oddly enough, in a lot of the plays that I did early on in my career I played an angel. Don’t ask me why. I was just trying to work. It just so happened that everything that I got cast in was an angel or some kind of ethereal figure of some sort. Religion or spiritually has always just kind of followed me. I was even a Religion minor in college and I think that’s where I first got this academic, unbiased view into different religions. At the end of the day, I think what symbolized all of these different religions is just compassion. It teaches us to put others above ourselves, in a humbling kind of way. Always be of service to others and have compassion for others. That’s been kind of the underbelly to all this. As Cindy discovered last season that translates into her as an act of doing God. We spent so much time on religious dogma and trying to define our religion and our beliefs that we judge others because they don’t necessarily hold the same values or beliefs that we do. I don’t think that’s what religion’s purpose is at its core. I think the purpose is to give some sort of moral and ethical foundation. Again, it’s to teach compassion. To me, that’s what my journey has led me to discover. As Cindy said, I think the most important thing is to not sit there and argue. The most important thing is to do God.

Q) What has been favorite part of Black Cindy’s development?

A) I would probably say I think this past season, Season Three, was my favorite part of her character development. Season One and by Season Two, as an audience, you have a stereotypical view of Cindy as the loudmouth party goer. She was about carpe diem, seize the day. I think that’s the view people had of her. In Season Three, she started out not with the right intention of converting to Judaism. It ended up even surprising her in a way that she wasn’t accepting. I think that with that, Season Three was my favorite for Cindy’s journey.

Q) Where do you connect and disconnect with her?

A) I think I connect with her that what I love about her is that she is never going to not want to share her opinion. Whether you want to hear it or not, she’s going to give it anyway. Where I share with her, if someone asks my opinion or thoughts on something, I’ll try to be as honest as I can. I think that the way Cindy does it, does it always translate in the most appropriate way? No. I think where we differ sometimes as I’ve gotten wiser that I’ve learned everybody has an opinion of something, but that opinion doesn’t always needs to be shared.

Q) What have been some of your favorite behind the scenes moments from filming “Orange Is The New Black?”

A) The interesting thing about the show is that all of these characters have a problem so rich that you want to give every character their own storyline and season. When that happens sometimes, you don’t always get to work together since everyone has their own specific storylines. I love working with my ghetto dorm girls. Then, I love/hate when everybody is doing a scene together like in the cafeteria or in the chapel where it brings like the entire cast together. Then, I get to see everybody. What I don’t like about those days is that they tend to be the longest because there are coverage shots and since we don’t always get to see each other we catch up and talk and having short little kikis in dressing rooms. I can’t forget the set visits! We have people come to visit our set. One time Gloria and Emilio Estefan came to set and I was just like, “Are you kidding me right now?!” They were excited to be there. I was like, “I don’t think you get it. You’re Gloria and Emilio.”

Q) What do you hope fans take away from watching Season Four?

A) I think it goes for any season that we do, I hope they take away that it changes them in some way. That is, of course, their own journey. What I heard someone say about Season One is that when they watch the show it is so familiar to them. Not because they are a prisoner, but because the things we deal with and talk about help them see themselves and as a result it changes them or changes their perspective. Or it reveals a perspective that they might not have once thought of before. So, I think with each season that is always the hope. Yes, we hope we entertain you, but I hope at the end of the day it teaches you something about yourself.