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" You may not immediately recognize Taryn Manning when she shows up on Orange Is the New Black. You may forget that, in addition to playing a meth-mouthed prisoner, she was also one of this year&amp;#039;s Playboy Playmates. So it goes, but one of the best parts of Netflix&amp;#039;s new series is the fantastic ensemble cast. Laura Prepon and Jason Biggs may be the &amp;quot;star hooks,&amp;quot; but the inmates that surround Prepon and lead Taylor Schilling steal scenes in each episode. And Manning&amp;#039;s one of the best of the lot. She plays Tiffany &amp;quot;Pennsatucky&amp;quot; Doggett, a Jesus loving, former meth-head in for murder. She&amp;#039;s certainly not lovable, but like all great terrible people on TV these days, she&amp;#039;s fascinating to watch. Over the years, Manning&amp;#039;s been quite active, with a short but sweet arc on Sons of Anarchy, plus stand-out parts in 8 Mile and Hustle and Flow. Esquire.com spoke to Manning earlier this week from her home in Los Angeles about her role on Orange Is the New Black (which she just got a promotion on) her own spirituality, the one record she&amp;#039;d listen to before going to prison, and more. ESQ: On Orange Is the New Black, you play Pennsatucky, Piper&amp;#039;s nemesis. Is this your first proper villain you&amp;#039;ve played? TARYN MANNING: If you&amp;#039;re going to use a term &amp;quot;proper,&amp;quot; it&amp;#039;s not my first villain. I guess in this context, yeah, definitely. At first it wasn&amp;#039;t really written...she&amp;#039;s just a unique character who is angry and on her own trip. It&amp;#039;s funny, because [creator] Jenji [Kohan] came to the set towards the end of filming and she&amp;#039;s like, and don&amp;#039;t quote me exactly, but she&amp;#039;s like &amp;quot;girl, I don&amp;#039;t want this character to be one-dimensional: religious, ignorant, mad at the world, but you? You are crazy.&amp;quot; Which was a compliment, I reckon. When I read the book, my character lasted about a paragraph. Maybe a page. But that&amp;#039;s my character. It was pretty clear, right from the top when I got the offer that the characters have been slightly embellished to make for good TV. ESQ: We want good TV. TM: Right. Obviously, as soon as you put an actor to a person who is real, that person comes to life through another person. Nothing&amp;#039;s ever truly accurate. You know what I&amp;#039;m saying. There was some consulting and I was prompted to do certain amounts of research and watch certain things. I designed the character after doing all this research, which I thoroughly enjoyed. ESQ: What did you research? TM: It was very similar to that documentary The Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. It&amp;#039;s really a little peak into &amp;quot;wow.&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s truly people that live this live: unapologetically. And they don&amp;#039;t know really any difference. They don&amp;#039;t know any different than their block or mobile-home park. But they know everything about everything, you know? ESQ: And your character is in jail for murder. TM: Yeah, at a clinic \u2014 the nurse that comes into sign her out, makes a snarky comment and it just sets her off. She just has it. ESQ: Would someone that committed such a violent crime be in a minimal security prison like this? TM: It&amp;#039;s funny you ask that. I&amp;#039;ve been asked that particular question many times and I&amp;#039;m actually quite curious too. I don&amp;#039;t want to give anything away, but when she does the crime, there happens to be a bunch of Christian picketers out front. So if there&amp;#039;s any truth to this story, she has super high-end lawyers. You know what a good lawyer can do for anybody. ESQ: She&amp;#039;s a religious fanatic. How fanatic are you about religion these days? TM: I&amp;#039;m very, very, very, very spiritual. I grew up in an organized religion, I went to Sunday school as a kid. I&amp;#039;m very grateful that there was religion. I think it instills a good moral compass. Everybody thinks because of my character that I&amp;#039;m this wild girl and I am, I&amp;#039;m an actor, and I have that in me \u2014 but I&amp;#039;m actually very calm and mellow. I meditate twice a day. I chant. I lean more towards Buddhist practices. I&amp;#039;m not a part of any organized practices, but I believe heavily on love and the universe and what you give is what you get. I really try to live my life as most positively as I can in this business. ESQ: Is it weird that this show is about prisoners, people who broke the law, but we kinda love all the inmates?  TM: Such a hard question. I feel like by no means are we trying to exploit prison as a place you want to go. ESQ: Right.  TM: It&amp;#039;s such an ironic show because of what you just said. But there is a fascination. I don&amp;#039;t know about you, if I&amp;#039;m flipping through the channels, and I see Lock Down, the shows that are all based around prison, I&amp;#039;m fascinated for some reason. It&amp;#039;s one of those things that not everybody will get to experience, nor should they want to. There are likable characters in prison. Sometimes the worst criminals are also some of the most charming people. ESQ: Pennsatucky isn&amp;#039;t one of the one&amp;#039;s you&amp;#039;d want to hang out with first. Is there any part of her that you like? TM: I love her conviction. I love her passion. I love her confidence. I love the way she walks. She&amp;#039;s angry, but I don&amp;#039;t think she cares about the way she looks. She&amp;#039;s definitely not happy about her teeth, she makes that very clear. She almost has this elitist thing, like [in a Pennsatucky voice] Who does she think she is? That&amp;#039;s something I love about her. It&amp;#039;s so authentic. It&amp;#039;s like, damn, she doesn&amp;#039;t care. There&amp;#039;s no reasoning with her. Only with God.  ESQ: Uninformed confidence is still confidence. TM: [Laughs.] I know. Exactly. ESQ: This isn&amp;#039;t the first bad girl you&amp;#039;ve played. Why are you so good at playing bad? TM: [Laughs.] Maybe because no one&amp;#039;s gotten to see me play good? There&amp;#039;s a couple of films I&amp;#039;ve done...I&amp;#039;m pretty hard on myself. Every now and again I&amp;#039;ll go on my IMDB or update my resume and I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;man, I&amp;#039;ve done a lot of work.&amp;quot; So much work that people haven&amp;#039;t seen. I have played some very kind and loving character. I don&amp;#039;t know why I&amp;#039;m so good at playing bad. I really don&amp;#039;t. I&amp;#039;ve seen a lot in my life. My dad was pretty gnarly but I loved him and I wouldn&amp;#039;t change it for the world. My mom&amp;#039;s a survivor.  ESQ: You&amp;#039;re also a musician and a DJ. Have you been working on any new music? TM: Every time I&amp;#039;m not on a project, I&amp;#039;m writing or in the studio or doing gigs DJing. I grew up in a very musical household. There was music and dance. My great-grandma was a famous tap dancer in the &amp;#039;40s, my mom was a dancer, she met my dad on the road when he was on tour in the &amp;#039;60s. Music is my heart and soul, it&amp;#039;s my love. I just put out a song four days ago. It&amp;#039;s called &amp;quot;Summer Ashes.&amp;quot; ESQ: What&amp;#039;s an easier space to work in, acting or music? TM: [Pauses.] Man. Huh. I mean as far as making a living, acting has been much more lucrative. Music&amp;#039;s been tough. I was signed with my brother for Dreamworks and we had an amazing run with our band [Boomkat]. I never wanted to stop. I feel like to the day I die I&amp;#039;ll play guitar and sing.  ESQ: When you&amp;#039;re DJ&amp;#039;ing these days, what&amp;#039;s on heavy rotation? TM: I guess when I&amp;quot;m lost in the moment, I just kinda go...I definitely lean towards dance music. Anything with a BPM of 120 or up. But then Daft Punk just came out with this album. It&amp;#039;s slowly morphing the music industry. Right now, dance music is very popular. I&amp;#039;m sure you&amp;#039;re very aware. But I think things are changing. Things are going back to more organic, more instrumentation, more live instrumentation. ESQ: IMDB and the Internet say you&amp;#039;re related to the Manning brothers \u2014 the football players. Is this true? TM: I&amp;#039;m not. That is definitely out there somewhere. ESQ: Do you like football?  TM: Oh, yeah, yeah, I love football, and I think they&amp;#039;re great [Laughs.] They&amp;#039;re very tall and big and I&amp;#039;d be like &amp;quot;what ancestors did they come from?&amp;quot; But no, we&amp;#039;re not directly related. ESQ: I&amp;#039;m going to ask this next question and you can&amp;#039;t say &amp;quot;that&amp;#039;s too hard.&amp;quot; Deal? TM: Okay... ESQ: You&amp;#039;re going to prison and about to serve your sentence. What&amp;#039;s the last record you listen to before heading out?  TM: [Long pause.] Like front to back? ESQ: Yeah. Like your last meal. TM: Nirvana. ESQ: Nevermind? TM: Yeah. Because I&amp;#039;d have this rage and I&amp;#039;d be obviously bummed and that album is such a vast array of emotion. I&amp;#039;ve studied so much about Kurt Cobain. I know how much pain he was in, physically with his stomach issues and how much journalism destroyed him and his family. He loved Courtney very, very much and his daughter. I&amp;#039;m very passionate about him and I feel like though he made such an incredible album, he was never really able to enjoy it. Because of the journalism, you know? He was wrongfully accused in a sense and I guess that just reminds me of going to prison. Not everybody is a sociopath and people have regret about what they&amp;#039;ve done. ESQ: I feel like you&amp;#039;ve thought about this before. TM: [Laughs.] Alright. So what&amp;#039;s your next damn question? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/interviews/a24109/taryn-manning-interview/>