Shape-Shifting Into Success

Tatiana Maslany Plays Many Characters in ‘Orphan Black’

By MARGY ROCHLIN

Tatiana Maslany plays many roles in the BBC America series “Orphan Black.” Credit Sam Comen for The New York Times

West Hollywood, Calif. — When John Fawcett and Graeme Manson, the creators of BBC America’s cult series “Orphan Black,” recall the moment they realized the central conceit of their twisty science-fiction conspiracy drama might actually be believable, they point to a bar scene in the third episode. In it, a bespectacled, dreadlocked Ph.D. student named Cosima has a lengthy conversation with Sarah, a street-savvy British grifter.

“They’re looking at themselves in the mirror, and John said to me, ‘It works!’ ” Mr. Manson recalled, referring to the fact that both Cosima and Sarah — as well as several other characters from around the world who discover they’re clones — are played by a single actress, Tatiana Maslany.

Tatiana Maslany as the British grifter Sarah, with Jordan Gavaris.

“Even after we cast Tat, we knew we had the right person, but we were really worried,” Mr. Manson said. Their concerns stretched far beyond the fact that if the series was going to succeed, Ms. Maslany had to be able to make each of the clones seem like a completely different person.

“One of my biggest fears — and theirs, too — was ‘Will people buy me as not 16?’ ” said Ms. Maslany, who is 28 but has been acting professionally since age 9 and was still being cast as troubled teenagers until just a few years ago. Having never landed an adult role, she was now being asked to play a grown-up times seven, and tap into a different skill set.

“As a kid I was used to crying on command and getting accolades for it,” Ms. Maslany said. “I think it’s the unemotional quality of this that’s different. As an adult, the moments where you’re vulnerable, you have to play that without saying that you’re being vulnerable.”

When “Orphan Black” debuted last year, even the most lackluster reviews hailed Ms. Maslany’s shape-shifting abilities. But as the first season unfolded, both she and the series began to attract attention from television critics as well as high-profile followers who enthusiastically posted their approval on Twitter, including the writer-producer Damon Lindelof (“Lost”) and the actor Kevin Bacon. When Emily Nussbaum, who writes about television for The New Yorker, was asked on Twitter what followers should be watching, she wrote, “Orphan Black, General Hospital and cholesterol.” The comedian-actor Patton Oswalt’s persistent you-must-watch-this rallying cry to his 1.67 million followers proved so helpful at getting the word out that Ms. Maslany referred to him as the ambassador for “Orphan Black.”

“It’s wild,” she said in reference to a grass-roots social media campaign that ignited a ratings climb for “Orphan Black” that continued long after the 10-episode season was over. “People who got the show, got the word out there. Sarah Silverman tweeted about us. Josh Malina from ‘Scandal.’ It’s like a whole other universe of promotion.”

When the 2013 awards season rolled round, Ms. Maslany was the recipient of a Critic’s Choice Award, an award from the Television Critics Association and a Golden Globe nomination. But when she came up empty on Emmy nomination announcement day, the Twitter universe exploded.

“It was unbelievable, the response to her not getting a nomination,” Mr. Fawcett said. “It turned out to be a better publicity thing for the show than if she’d gotten one.”

On a recent morning, a jet-lagged Ms. Maslany, who’d flown in from London the evening before, sat at the rooftop restaurant of Petite Ermitage, a hotel in West Hollywood, trying to perk herself up with a bowl-size double latte. But no amount of caffeine could help disguise that, while she’s been a regular on several Canadian television series and even shot a two-episode arc of the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” she’s still adjusting to being at the center of a series with so much buzz. “Orphan Black” has generated a lot hoopla for its second season premiere, on April 19.

“To be honest, it’s been very surreal for me,” said Ms. Maslany, dressed in faded denim pedal pushers, an oversize print blouse and bright red lipstick. Then her shoulders drooped a little and the volume of her naturally lively voice dropped considerably. When asked why she’d suddenly started whispering, Ms. Maslany’s face turned red.

“I’m embarrassed,” she confessed. “I know that there’s a following now, and we have our fans and our critics who’ve been really good to us and taken us to that next level. But the only world I can understand is about the work. This other thing feels very foreign to me.”

Tatiana Maslany as a soccer mom named Alison, with Kristian Bruun.

Ms. Maslany grew up in the flat Canadian prairies of Regina, Saskatchewan, where she and her friends entertained themselves by driving up and down the town’s main street and by participating in local theater.

“There’s a quietness there that you fill,” is how Ms. Maslany explained it. “I wasn’t super into the high school thing, especially after always working with adults. I was obsessed with the idea of dancing, performing onstage and acting.”

A lopsided bookshelf in shop class proved to her that she didn’t have what it took to follow in the footsteps of her father, a woodworker. But her mother, a translator, taught her to speak German and French and set the foundation for her daughter’s facility with accents and mimicry. By the time she tried out for the role of an out-of-control underage girl in the small coming-of-age feature “Grown Up Movie Star,” Ms. Maslany was 23 and knew how to make an audition her own.

“We were obviously looking for someone a lot younger,” said Adriana Maggs, who wrote and directed the film. “But she worked every corner, just moving through the room like she owned it. I knew she was perfect.”

Set in Newfoundland, and made on a shoestring budget, “Grown Up Movie Star” ended up not only competing in the world cinema category at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, but Ms. Maslany also took home the special jury prize for breakout performance. “We knew we might be up for something — cinematography or whatever,” said Ms. Maslany, who then painted a self-deprecating portrait of her win in four short sentences: “I was sick. There are photos. They’re online now. You can see I have a raw little red nose, really beady eyes and a look of panic.”

Ms. Maslany was near the end of shooting the first season of “Orphan Black” when the breadth of her responsibilities suddenly struck her. With the help of wigs, clothing, body language and accents, she’d played at various times — often opposite one another in the same scene — five different clone sisters: Sarah, Cosima, a crazy-eyed Ukrainian called Helena, a tightly wound soccer mom named Alison and a sort of alpha clone known as Rachel. (Two other clones, a cop named Beth, and Katja, a German punk, were killed off almost immediately.) That’s when panic set in again, Ms. Maslany said: “I suddenly thought, ‘I don’t want this to come out. I don’t know what this is going to be. Please stop.’ ”

Then came the glowing reviews and the love from the fans. By the time production of Season 2 began, she was in the groove, memorizing pages and pages of dialogue using the track-layering music software GarageBand to record the lines of one or more of the clones and rehearse against it, and brainstorming with the hair, makeup and wardrobe crew. “It’s very exciting every single day in the hair and makeup trailer, “ she said. “We just kind of vibe off of each other.”

Last season, to help her quickly shuck one character and assume another, she devised musical playlists and a style of dancing for each clone. She used to mostly flail around in private, but since then, the Toronto-based Ms. Maslany has been taking the party to the “Orphan Black” set and home. “I dance around and make a lot of noises,” she said, laughing. “My neighbors must love me.”

Her schedule is punishing, though, so it’s no wonder that, although she completed shooting Season 2 more than a month ago, on this morning a pale Ms. Maslany closed her eyes for a moment and tilted her head back to soak up some warm California sun. In May, she starts shooting “The Paper Store,” an indie film also starring Penn Badgley.

“I always have high hopes,” she said. “I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, whatever. I’ll just roll onto a movie.’ But I’m like a shell when I finish.”

A couple of days after production ended, she went on a road trip with her parents, saying: “My family is the best place for me to recharge. I don’t have to be anything. I don’t have to perform for them. I can just be the 15-year-old, complaining in the back seat.”