‘Orange Is the New Black’ to Reportedly Get a Reunion Movie!!

When it comes to the biggest Netflix original shows of all time, some of the titles that immediately come to mind are Stranger Things and Ozark. Other shows like House of Cards may have been forgotten in the scope of time due to certain controversies surrounding leading stars, but one of the first Netflix original shows that shaped what the service has become was Orange Is the New Black. The show was written and created for TV by Jenji Kohan, and after kicking off the dawn of streaming in 2013, it ran for seven seasons before ending in 2019 — it’s hard to imagine a world nowadays where Netflix puts out seven seasons of a show in as many years.

Collider’s Therese Lacson recently attended a roundtable interview with one of the leading stars of Orange Is the New Black, Natasha Lyonne, for the second edition of the Italian Global Series Festival, and she affirmed that “Orange Is the New Black is going to get a little reunion movie or something. Because I just love these characters and these tribes so much.” She also teased that she would be “frustrated with [herself] artistically” if she doesn’t direct a movie before she dies. Diving more specifically into Orange Is the New Black, Lyonne explained the perception of success was warped 13 years ago when the show was first arriving, before Netflix had become the global streaming sensation it is today:

“It’s the life in the arts is like what saves you also kills you. You know, it’s got me grinding. But I’m also grateful, or maybe I was confused by our perception of like success because they all feel sort of like it’s a weird thing like the writing, the acting. I mean, it’s a weird thing when you start to get into the world of also like awards and stuff, because it’s almost like things that are total successes can suddenly feel like failures, and then sometimes things that feel like nobody understands them yet, people suddenly catch up to, and they’re giant.”

The ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Cast Thought They Were Doing Something Wrong at First

Lyonne further explained that this separation from the public caused by the lack of public awareness actually allowed the team to operate at another level of creative freedom, as they weren’t as worried as they would be today about what the response was going to be. “Nobody believed in Orange Is the New Black until after it came out, right?” explained Lyonne. “So, like, you have the feeling of, ‘Oh my God, what’s what’s wrong with me that I’m on a streaming show, right? Like playing an ancillary character.’ That first season of Orange Is the New Black felt like we were doing something wrong, like we were kind of like losers because we were on a streaming show because nobody knew what Netflix was yet, so it didn’t exist until then. So it was actually a really special time because we were so isolated from any public discourse or opinion yet, because people didn’t even know it was a thing.”

Things changed over the course of working on seven seasons of Orange Is the New Black, and when it came time to say goodbye to Nicky Nichols, Lyonne still wasn’t ready: “And then by the second season, you’re in discussion with that first season. And then by the sixth season, nobody even cares. You know what I mean? You’re not getting the same sort of recognition, so everybody’s sort of feeling sad. And it’s not until the final season that you’re starting to realize, like saying goodbye to Nicky Nichols, that last scene, we were all weeping. I was weeping. It was so emotional.”

Lyonne also revealed that, while working on the final seasons of Orange Is the New Black, she began writing another of her most famous shows, Russian Doll. The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland co-wrote the show with Lyonne and Amy Poehler. Working on things for that long may not feel like a long period of time while it’s happening, but when looking back and seeing how different everyone’s lives were, Lyonne fully grasped the weight of how much time had passed, saying, “So you know, the ride though, when I think of it. I mean, there were marriages, divorces, people got sick, people fell in love, fell apart. You know, I started developing Russian Doll during it. Like there was so much happening, there was so much life. So I don’t know. It’s just funny that they don’t totally feel as clear as they end up being perceived.”