Laverne Cox as Sophia Burset of the Netflix original series “Orange is the New Black”
*Laverne Cox is blazing a trail in Hollywood as the first successful African American transgender actress to star as a transgender character on a regular series.
She plays inmate Sophia Burset, the prison hairdresser on the Netflix original series “Orange is the New Black.” Her character, locked up for credit card fraud, has to deal with being the only transgender woman in the prison and all the transphobic hate that it brings — from both inmates and staff.
M. Lamar (L) and his transgender twin sister Laverne Cox of the Netflix original series “Orange is the New Black”
In episode 2 of the first season, we saw flashbacks of her pre-transition life as a firefighter named Marcus, with a wife and son. Cox revealed in previous interviews that it was actually her twin brother M. Lamar who played Sophia pre-transition.
Below, Cox admits that her brother was called in after show creator, Jenji Kohan, and the episode’s director, Jodie Foster, thought she wasn’t butch enough to pull off the scenes.
Listen below.
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