Emmys 2014: Nominee Taylor Schilling on being part of TV’s evolution, taco celebrating
It’s a day Taylor Schilling might like better than taco night.
On Thursday, the 29-year-old actress scored a nomination for lead actress in a comedy for her portrayal as yuppie inmate Piper Chapman in Netflix’s prison dramedy “Orange Is the New Black.”
“I live close to the Hudson River, and I just decided impulsively to walk over,” Schilling said of hearing about her nomination. “I had my phone on airplane mode. Then I turned my phone off of airplane mode, and I had a lot of texts.”
Schilling’s nomination stands as one of 12 Emmy nods that the series, from Jenji Kohan and based on the book by Piper Kerman, racked up. It’s a welcome form of validation for the series that is part of a pioneering club in television’s evolution as streaming sites such as Netflix and Amazon beef up their original programming portfolios.
“Look at us now! Look at us now!” Schilling said in between a break from shooting the show’s third season in New York. “I always knew the story was so good and so important. ... I would like to hope that story trumps all. I think especially now, when there are so many different ways to watch things. It doesn’t really matter what your platform is. The cream rises to the top. I think you can see so many tiny, little shows getting recognition. It really depends on the quality of the content.”
And “Orange Is the New Black” has critics praising its quality, particularly its second season, which was unveiled in early June. It had fans of the eclectic bunch of Litchfield inmates consuming the episodes like potato chips. An idea that Schilling says she’s quite familiar with, having binged on “House of Cards,” “Downton Abbey” and “Top of the Lake.”
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But what pre-bingeing-era show would she want to get full on?
“I’d pick ‘Saved by the Bell,’ for sure,” she said. “My parents would probably have to pay babysitters to keep me in check.”
But why daydream when there’s celebrating that should be happening on set.
“Maybe we should make tacos, like you said,” Schilling said. “Or cash in at the commissary.”
Twitter: @villarrealy
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