“Orange Is the New Black” star Uzo Aduba says her character, Suzanne Warren a.k.a. “Crazy Eyes,” is finally growing up on the show’s sixth season.
“I think this season for Suzanne, it feels like she is choosing for herself for the first time,” Aduba said in an interview with TheWrap. “I think we’re watching Suzanne, this season, grow up a little bit in that way.”
The hardest scene for Aduba this season, she said, was in episode 1 when Suzanne was being interrogated and all she was trying to do was voice her frustration that she needed her medication.
“I could feel her frustration,” she said. “I feel like that was the top level of frustration I felt with her over the course of the six seasons — where she feels unheard.”
Aduba has been playing Suzanne for six years now, a character that is portrayed as highly intelligent but quickly spirals into emotional outbursts due to an unspecified mental illness. The actress, who has won multiple awards for the role including two Emmys, says she prepares for a day on set in Suzanne’s head by going on walks in order to “access her” easier, and also goes on walks to get her back out.
“The thing that’s been the thing for me over time has been learning how to speak ‘Suzanne,’” she said. “Before, I wasn’t fluent in it, but now, I can speak this language.”
She added, “She strikes me as someone who is on a quest for love and I want her to supremely find it in herself… She’s been a caterpillar before and now she’s ready to spin around herself and grow up.”
“Orange Is the New Black” also stars Taylor Schilling, Laverne Cox, Laura Prepon, Natasha Lyonne, Danielle Brooks, Taryn Manning and Dascha Polanco.
The sixth season of the hit Netflix show premiered on July 27 and is currently streaming.
Watch the video above.