Blair Brown on her new Martha Stewart-meets-Paula Deen character on 'Orange Is the New Black'

Fictional prison life agrees with Blair Brown.

Playing an inmate on Netflix's Orange Is the New Black "just rejuvenated my soul and made me very happy to be in this business and made me like acting again," the actress told reporters a few months ago.

One of the more recent additions to Netflix's women-in-prison dramedy, which releases its fourth season Friday, Brown plays celebrity chef Judy King, a character to whom the shorthand Martha Stewart-meets-Paula Deen doesn't nearly do justice.

Not being easily summed up was probably one of the attractions for Brown, who was nominated for five Emmys in a row for playing the hard-to-pigeonhole title character in the 1987-91 series The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, but who hasn't had a role like that since.

"It was because of Molly Dodd that I got this job," she said. Orange creator Jenji Kohan once worked as a production assistant on a short-lived show from Molly Dodd creator Jay Tarses, and Kohan "loved Molly Dodd."

Brown loved it, too, and appreciates what she once had, and has now, comparing Orange favorably to her recent experience as the main character's mother on CBS's Limitless.

The since-canceled Limitless was "a lovely place to work, but all I do is kind of nod and get people food and say to my son, 'I love you,' and, to my husband, 'Don't fight with Brian.' "

Except for the food, which will play some role in her character's life behind bars, being Judy King doesn't look like that. Orange Is the New Black is one of the few places where actresses who might look like background players on other shows get to shine.

Saying too much about what's in store for King, or anyone, would land me in Netflix jail, but it's safe to say that Samira Wiley, whose character, Poussey Washington, has been one of the TV chef's biggest fans, may be one of Brown's biggest, too.

"I can tell you about Blair this season, that she is phenomenal," Wiley said after the news conference.

"No, really," she said, as Brown, beside her, made protesting noises. "I don't think I've had more fun or felt any more comfortable or just felt such admiration for another actor before working with Blair."

"Actually," Brown said, "I met Samira before we started. We were doing a play reading. So she was my entrée into the show."

Their two characters will have "our moments," said Brown, who's as cagey as any of the show's players when it comes to actual plot points.

"The thing is, when you sign on with Jenji, you don't know what you're signing on for. . . . The beauty of the scripts are that we don't know what's going to come up. People don't have conversations [about them]. All of a sudden, you sit at home and read a script and go, 'I'm doing this.' It's really exciting that way."

It shouldn't be a spoiler by now to say that we'll learn more in the coming season about a number of inmates and guards, that Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), who's ostensibly the series' lead character, will continue to be among its least interesting and that the balance of light and dark elements will make Orange, which has received Emmy nominations for both comedy and drama, as hard to pin down as ever.

"No one ever talks about feminism, no one talks about our place in the business," Brown said of the Orange set.

"Everyone just comes to work, men and women, has a great time, works hard, lots of jokes. It's completely relaxed in that way. It's just that if there's a chance to open it up differently, then Jenji and the writers . . . they take it and go with it. Because they're not afraid."

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Orange Is the New Black
Available Friday on Netflix.

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