On the Couch With Clipped and Jurassic World Star Lauren Lapkus

Lauren Lapkus is one of those stars who seems to pop up everywhere. From her role on Orange Is the New Black as shy-but-sweet corrections officer Susan Fischer to memorable turns on comedy cult hits like Comedy Bang! Bang! and Kroll Show, she’s become one to watch. And expect to see more this summer—not only is she starring in a new TBS sitcom (Clipped), but she’s in the most anticipated blockbuster of the summer (Jurassic World). The star stopped by Glamour to chat her favorite OITNB scenes, working with Jake Johnson, and more. Read on!

Jurassic World is going to be huge this summer. What was it like on set?

Lauren Lapkus: It was awesome. It was such a good time. We shot in Hawaii and New Orleans. My first day was in Hawaii on a mountainside on a helicopter launch pad with a rainbow over the ocean…it was very amazing. I was totally thrilled to be there. The whole thing was just so much fun, and Chris Pratt was so cool and nice and funny and everything everyone says about him is true, I think. I got to work with Jake Johnson the majority of the time, and he’s just one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.

He’s my dream ultimate crush.

LL: Yeah, he is awesome.

So what can you tell us about your role?

LL: I play Vivian—she works in the control room, and basically she’s the eyes and ears of the park. She’s keeping tabs on everything and letting her boss know everything that’s going on. Once things start to go awry, she’s ready for action…in some sense. [Laughs]

You typically do a lot of comedy. Was it different being on an action set?

LL: Yeah, it was definitely different. I had to do a lot of emotional stuff—my character kind of deals with…she’s one of the main people who’s actually kind of upset about the stuff that’s going on. I think everyone’s trying to hold it together, and she gets to show a little bit more of the emotion. That was definitely different for me. I’m usually playing maybe a little more broader characters, that type of stuff. So it was fun to get to do more dramatic.

You’re also on Clipped on TBS.

LL: It takes place in Boston in a barbershop. Ashley Tisdale is in it and George Wendt and a bunch of other really great comedian types. I’m really excited about that show. It’s from the creators of Will and Grace. They’re extremely talented, so it’s fun.

Tell me about your character.

LL: I play Joy. She’s a receptionist, and she’s really naive and sweet and wholesome, very religious. She’s married, and she’s one of the only ones in the cast who’s married, so it seems like she has her life together—but throughout the season things start to happen to her that show maybe it’s not so perfect.

I loved your role on Orange Is the New Black. Do you have any favorite memories from the show?

LL: I guess ironically one of my favorite moments was being fired because it was a crazy scene to shoot. It was really emotional for me as an actor because I was sad to be leaving the show. That was a cool day. Even the scene where Natasha Leone’s character is hitting on me a bit—that was just fun. I would have loved to explore that, personally, but that’s just me. [Laughs]

I think we all would have liked to see that! So tell me more about your background and how you got into comedy.

LL: Yeah, I think I was always a class clown growing up and a funny kid. I never really knew how to channel that until I got into high school. I had a teacher who recommended I take improv classes in Chicago—I’m from Evanston, Illinois—so I did improv classes at Improv Olympic and that kind of opened me up. I was in adult classes when I was 18, so being around 25 years old when you’re 18 is like really, “Whoa! Totally crazy!” That’s where I started to find my voice and figure out where I fit into the world. Doing improv really got me started in my whole career.

__I’m always curious: How do you apply your improv training to roles like Orange where you have a script. Do you use those tools? __

LL: Yeah, I think a lot of it just has to do with the comfortability with yourself. Improv just helped me so much just feeling confident and not worrying about how I look or what I’m doing or overthinking things. You just don’t have time to do that in improv. I think that helps me on set in general—being able to add in little moments or throw in a line if the camera is still going at the end. That’s just fun to have that ability.

You’ve worked with some of the biggest people in comedy right now—Scott Aukerman, Nick Kroll. Have you learned any tips from them?

LL: Definitely being around those guys and performing with them ups my game. Doing Comedy Bang! Bang!, you have to play at the top of your abilities, so it is so fun to get that opportunity. I’ve grown a lot as a performer just working with those guys.

And you have a podcast on Earwolf (created by Scott Aukerman and Jeff Ullrich) too!

LL: I do, it’s called With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus with Lauren Lapkus, and the idea is that the guest is always the host and I’m always the guest. So they come on and do whatever they want with the show—they can be a character, they can be themselves—and they tell me who my character will be once we start recording. They basically just introduce me and then it’s fully improvised.

I listened to the one with Ben Schwartz.

LL: [Laughs] Oh yeah, that was fun. It basically devolved into us singing ’90s theme songs for 30 minutes, I think, but he’s great.

So do you have more guests in the pipeline?

LL: I’m definitely going to keep doing that for as long as I can keep it going. It’s kind of hard with my schedule to do it, but I aim to put a new one out every week. I have some fun guests in the pipeline, and I have a fun one coming out in July. I don’t know when it will come out, but I have a Christmas in July episode coming, so people might know what that means, but I’ll leave it at that.

How is doing a podcast with improv? It’s all voice-based instead of physical. Do you have to do anything different for that?

LL: I love it because you can be anything. So many of my characters have really crazy physicalities, so it’s really fun to be able to say like, “I’m an elf who’s the size of a dollar bill!” [Laughs] Whatever it is—things I wouldn’t be able to really show in an improv scene, it’s fun to be able get that all out and be as weird as I possibly can.

Jurassic World is in theaters now and Clipped premieres June 16 on TBS.