Laverne Cox
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Laverne Cox. Chances are, you met her the way most of the world did, a transgender woman in prison, doing hair and fighting for her right to gender-affirming care in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black.
Listen, Doc, I need my dosage. I've given five years $80,000 and my freedom for this. I'm finally who I'm supposed to be. Do you understand? I can't go back.
Look, I'd like to help you. Unfortunately, you have elevated levels of AST and ALT, which could mean liver damage.
That's bulls**t. That could mean anything.
We're going to take you off your hormones entirely. Until we can schedule an ultrasound, get a clean read.
But that could take months.
I can offer you an antidepressant.
That's Laverne Cox as Sophia Bursette in 2014. The role made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy in an acting category and put her on the cover of Time magazine next to the words... The Transgender Tipping Point. For a decade now, she's been one of the most visible trans women in America. But the woman on that magazine cover was carrying things she'd never told anyone, not even her therapist. She's written a new memoir titled Transcendent, and it arrives at a moment when her right to simply exist is being debated in state houses across the country. But the book makes clear that for Cox, none of this is new. Long before she had the words for it, she was bullied for who she was.
Her very existence, as she writes, was an affront to the order of things. And she's been fighting for the right to simply be her entire life.
What challenges did Laverne Cox face during her childhood?
Laverne Cox, welcome to Fresh Air. It's such an honor to have you.
Thank you so much for having me. I have not heard. It's rare that I just hear the clip from Orange, and it's been so long. And I, gosh, it brings back memories. And it's really, what's interesting is even for actors out there, often when I watch a scene that I've done, it's hard for me to have distance. I immediately am in the character again, and I'm in the emotion again. of the scene. And so I'm immediately like feeling what I was feeling when we shot this. This is 2012 that we shot it. So it was funny. I was just like.
Yeah, did you laugh? Why did it make you laugh?
No, at the end when, I mean, the writing is so fantastic. Maybe I can offer you an antidepressant. It's hilarious.
Well, Orange is the New Black was revolutionary for the time. And your character, I was very surprised to learn from the book that you weren't a regular reoccurring character. You were a guest star.
Yes. And I mean, that's really a contractual thing. So I was in, I think... I don't remember how many episodes I was in the first season, but I remember it was a day-to-day thing. I didn't have, like, a contract the first season. I was literally a day player, guest star, day player. But I was kind of making day player rates. I wasn't making, like, guest star rates. The second season, my salary was, like, a guest star rate, and I had, like, I think a seven-episode guarantee, and they ended up using me for nine episodes. Yeah. I was there a lot and they wrote generously for me. I think because that my backstory episode came, it was the third episode of the show that people thought.
Felt like you were a cast member.
Yes.
Yeah. I think people think because so much of the work that you have done feels so true to life that so much of that show might be your life. And I think it's part of what makes this book really eye opening because we're learning things about you that we didn't know before. I want to start with the beginning of your book. Because you're eight years old.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:19
2
What challenges did Laverne Cox face during her childhood?
2:19–7:24
3
How did Laverne's experience with bullying shape her identity?
7:24–9:47
4
What insights does Laverne provide about her memoir 'Transcendent'?
9:47–14:17
5
What impact did 'Orange Is the New Black' have on Laverne's career?
14:17–19:44
6
How did Laverne transition from dance to acting?
19:44–32:34
7
What role does Laverne see for herself in the current cultural landscape?
32:34–49:29
Speakers
6 identifiedMore from Fresh Air
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