Lovely & Amazing New OITNB Star Ruby Rose Identifies As “A Guy” In Real Life

Netfix hit Orange Is The New Black is no stranger to bold, forward-looking casting choices — after all, we're talking about the show that introduced many of us to beautiful transgender actress Laverne Cox for the first time. And as the June 12 release of the highly anticipated third season of the prison dramedy approaches, you can rest assured that these wonderfully all-inclusive casting decisions will continue. So, get ready to meet Australian actress and model Ruby Rose, a true stunner who will play Stella Carlin, the androgynous Aussie comprising one corner of a sure-to-be-drama-filled love triangle with Piper and Alex. “Physically and mannerisms-wise, we’re very similar,” Rose tells Vanity Fair of her character in a revealing new interview. But in real life, Rose, who was born female and prefers to use the feminine pronouns "she" and “her," identifies much more as "a boy, a guy." Rose started to realize how different she was from other girls when she was in high school, when she started to "love how her hair looked when she got out of the shower, dark with a little curl at the front, like Superman." The actress would bind her chest with bandages to hide burgeoning breasts, and at the age of 15 decided to shave her head in an attempt to look more masculine — a change her classmates did not appreciate. After changing her appearance, Rose found herself "in really dangerous situations," revealing in a 2014 interview last year for The Guardian that “If I talked back, a few times I got hit by guys. But they’d say, ‘I would never hit a girl, but you're not a girl.’” Though bullied by her peers, Rose "remembers thinking to herself, 'You watch! One day, I will do something, it will be great!'" And luckily for us, she did, meeting with modeling agencies and eventually landing a career-starting gig hosting on MTV Australia, where she dedicated her first award, for Favorite Female Personality on a cable network, to those cruel high schoolers: “To all the girls who bullied me in school, where are you now?” We certainly know where Rose is now: On screen as the "doesn't really give a fuck” inmate Stella Carlin. And happily, her personal life is going just as well as her professional one; the L.G.B.T.Q. activist is engaged to designer Phoebe Dahl, granddaughter of beloved children’s-book author Roald Dahl. The couple plans to tie the knot sometime next year.