Jessica Pimentel of Orange Is the New Black Gets Stuck to the Seats at This “Dirty Dive”

Jessica Pimentel has played pregnant Hispanic women before, but—as with all of the amazing characters on Orange Is the New Black—her role as Maria Ruiz (not that pregnant Hispanic woman who got knocked up by the prison guard; the other pregnant Hispanic woman) defies the stereotype.

As the highly acclaimed, wildly popular Netflix series ramped up for its second season, Jessica—a born and bred Brooklynite—stayed local at the nautical-themed bar and metal venue the Anchored Inn and the Acheron in Bushwick. She’s a regular there not only for its insanely delicious El Cheeseburger, its wall of badass show posters, and its magical collection of velvet portraits (from Vladimir Putin to a white tiger that the macho Russian likely rode and then killed for fun), but also because her extreme metal band Alekhine’s Gun loves to shred onstage in the back room.

I don’t think that they’re trying to make [this place] some glossed-over version, make-believe cosmopolitan place. This is a dive. I’m afraid to get up because I’m stuck [to the seat] right now.

I’m not the only pregnant Hispanic inmate. It was like, “Here I am again.” But, I think the way we developed Maria, we didn’t go that extreme cliché. Maria is not this weird kind of uneducated wildling type thing. We never know what the stories might reveal. But she doesn’t carry herself that way. I made a point to not make her that way.

One of my favorite shows that [my band] ever played was here.

We get to become a part of someone’s life.

The first time when I heard that heavy music, it was a freedom that I’d never heard before. A passion I’d never heard before. A vibrancy. An electricity. An energy that was unexplainable. It came from the heart.

This place is one of the few special places in New York. Because of this music that [my band] plays, you know that you have this global family here.

In the band, getting to write music, getting to write words comes from a very personal, private place. Those songs change you and touch you and become a part of you. That’s what we get to do now; we get to become a part of someone’s life. And they can attach whatever words, whatever notes we play to their life and make it meaningful to them.

My intention, no matter what I do, is gonna be to express myself and to connect. Same with acting: it’s gonna be to tell a story and hopefully that story will connect with the viewer. No matter what you choose to do, it’s the intention behind it. For me, that’s always my intention: to try to make things better, make a connection with other people.

Here we are in Brooklyn. Bushwick. 718, if you don’t know.

May 21, 2014

(Photos by Phil Provencio)