Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner is moving from Madison Avenue to Litchfield Prison.
First reported by the Hollywood Reporter, Weiner is directing an upcoming season-four episode of Netflix’s original series Orange is the New Black, set to premiere in 2016.
Weiner and OITNB creator Jenji Kohan are longtime friends and this will be the first major project Weiner has directed that he has not also written. Besides nine Mad Men directorial credits, Weiner also directed the 2013 big screen feature Are You Here, starring Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Amy Poehler.
OITNB, based off of Piper Kerman's memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison (2010), about her experiences in a minimum-security federal prison, has won numerous accolades and garnered critical acclaim since premiering in 2013. It was one of Netflix’s first original series and was confirmed for a fourth season before the third season even aired.
Laura Prepon, who stars as Alex Vause in OITNB, has raved about working with Weiner.
“We filmed a huge day on Sunday, and a lot of directors might have been overwhelmed by that, but he wasn’t and he knew exactly what he wanted to do,” Prepon said. “With a huge cast like ours, when you have a director who knows exactly what they want, it makes everything go a lot smoother. I love Matt—he’s awesome.”
When pressed for details regarding the episode’s plot, Prepon was careful to not leak any information.
“I will get in a lot of trouble,” she said. “But I can say the fans are going to love it.”