The Woman Behind OITNB's Maria Ruiz Is Metal As Fuck

Known for its racially diverse, emotionally rich ensemble cast, one of the inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary is the thick-skinned, semi-villainous (at least in the series' most recent season) Ruiz, the leader of the Spanish Harlem group of women who, as it turns out, is just as impatient to watch season five as you are.

"We left at this very high tension place... We all wanna see how it unfolds, even though we know what's gonna happen, we wanna see the performances, we wanna see the shots, we wanna see how the make-up looks on, you wanna see it all go down in one piece," she says in her Sydney hotel, comfortably curled up in a huge armchair.

Ruiz was one of season four's antagonists — in addition to psychopathic prison guard Thomas Humphrey — and instigated a number of brutal attacks on fellow inmates, including branding a swastika on privileged good-girl-gone-bad Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling). Pimentel herself seems nothing like the caustic Ruiz, but she explains that's not all true.

"Maria took a turn for the dark side in season four, but I think it was with good reason."

"Every character you play is a piece of you — you have to bring your experience to your character. There's a piece of Maria in me — that tough chick that will hold her ground, but then you also see in the first four seasons that Maria's very funny, she's very intelligent, she's very caring, she loves her family so much, she's extremely loyal.

"Maria took a turn for the dark side in season four, but I think it was with good reason. She lost her one beacon of hope and when someone has nothing, nothing to live for, they become the most dangerous person in the room."

Away from Orange Is The New Black, Pimentel is a lover of heavy metal and the guttural lead singer of her band Alekhine's Gun, namechecking bands like King Diamond, Metallica, Warzone and Slayer as heavy bands that got her love for metal burning. Her partner is Swedish metal band Meshuggah's drummer, Tomas Haake, who she tagged along with on their recent Australian tour. We gush about how they met at an afterparty like we're two teenage girls at a sleepover.

"We just started talking, and it was not a flirtation-vibe, it was just like — wow, we really connected! Two people just sharing ideas and spilling guts and telling stories that no one knows, and we just talked the whole night and it was awesome. And we thought we'd be really good friends and we maintained very loose communication — and it turns out I was going through a break-up and he was going through a break-up and we were both very respectful of that. I didn't know that it was an option even [to date]", she says, getting coy all of a sudden. "And he never gave off that vibe either. It was really a spiritual connection and mental connection first."

She ponders for a moment, sounding less like Maria Ruiz than ever. "When your new love's mum says she's never seen him so happy in his whole life, that really is a beautiful thing to hear."