10 Surprising Early Roles Of Orange Is The New Black Stars

10. Taylor Schilling - Dark Matter And Mercy

Taylor Schilling got her start in Hollywood only six years before landing the role of Piper Chapman. She graduated from Fordham in 2006, and just one year later she was cast in a movie alongside Meryl Streep. Not bad for an actor just getting her start. 

The movie was Dark Matter, an independent film directed by Chen Shi-zheng. Schilling plays a pretty minor character, Jackie, but it was still enough to get her foot in the door in Hollywood. Her first big break was as the lead in the NBC medical drama Mercy, which was pretty exciting for a childhood fan of ER. 

In the show she played Veronica Callahan, a tough nurse who has just returned from Iraq at the beginning of the series. Schilling does a pretty good job in it, but the show received mixed reviews and was ultimately cancelled at the end of its first season due to poor ratings.

Schilling dabbled in film for a bit with Atlas Shrugged and Argo, and then, in 2013, landed her Orange Is The New Black role.