50 Fun Facts About Orphan Black

Which actress plays Sarah, Alison, Cosima and every other clone sister in Orphan Black?

Tatiana Maslany built a separate music playlist for each clone and gave some their own dance moves, using sound and movement to switch between them.

The episode titles of Orphan Black's first season are all phrases from which book?

On the Origin of Species supplied every first-season title, and the writers kept the habit, turning next to the works of Francis Bacon and then to a presidential farewell address.

On which Canadian channel did Orphan Black first air?

Space no longer exists under that name: its owner rebranded the science-fiction channel in 2019, two years after the show's finale.

Which two people created Orphan Black?

Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, a screenwriter and a director, nursed the idea for about a decade before it was made; they wanted a show they could shoot in North America.

Which Orphan Black clone is a suburban soccer mom who ends up dealing pills?

Alison Hendrix guards her tidy suburban life so fiercely that she runs for school trustee while she and her husband are secretly selling drugs.

What job did Beth Childs hold when Sarah took over her identity?

Police detective Beth had recently shot a civilian, so in stealing her identity Sarah also inherited an inquiry into a killing she knew nothing about.

In Orphan Black, what is the name of Sarah's foster brother?

Felix Dawkins is the first person Sarah tells about the clones, and he later goes looking for his own blood relatives, finding a half-sister called Adele.

Which actor plays the artist Felix in Orphan Black?

Jordan Gavaris was born and raised in Ontario, so the English accent of the London-born Felix is one he puts on for the role.

In Orphan Black, what is the scientific movement behind the cloning called?

Neolution holds that people should use science to steer their own evolution, a creed that leads its followers from body modification to illegal human cloning.

Which biotech corporation in Orphan Black plants 'monitors' in the clones' lives?

Dyad Institute monitors pose as partners: Alison's husband and Beth's boyfriend both turn out to be reporting on the women they live with.

In Orphan Black, what is the secret religious group that hunts the clones called?

The Proletheans split over the clones: one faction hunts them as abominations, while a later leader wants to breed from one and calls her fertility a miracle.

Which Orphan Black clone is Sarah's twin sister?

Helena was found at twelve by religious extremists, told she was the original, and harshly trained to hunt down and kill her own clones.

In Orphan Black, what is the name of Sarah's daughter?

Kira heals unusually fast, and since the clones were designed to be sterile, a clone's child is a prize that their makers are eager to study.

The female clone project in Orphan Black takes its name from which Greek myth?

Leda and the Swan is the myth in which Zeus comes to a Spartan queen in the form of a swan; Sarah first meets the name in the caption of an old photograph.

In Orphan Black, what is the military's male cloning initiative called?

Project Castor clones, unlike the women, grew up together as soldiers and always knew exactly what they were.

Which actor plays the male clones of Orphan Black, including Mark Rollins?

Ari Millen joined in the second season as a single character, the cult follower Mark, before its finale revealed him as one face of a whole second clone line.

In Orphan Black, who raised the male clones in a military setting?

Dr. Virginia Coady, whom the male clones call Mother, was also secretly sterilising ordinary women to gather data on the illness that afflicts them.

In Orphan Black, who is revealed as the original genetic source of both clone lines?

Kendall Malone absorbed a twin brother before birth, leaving her with two cell lines, one female and one male, and each seeded a different clone project.

In Orphan Black, how is the clones' original genetic source related to Siobhan Sadler?

Her biological mother, in fact, and no friend: the two had been estranged ever since the older woman killed Siobhan's husband.

Which novel did Ethan Duncan use to encode his research?

The Island of Doctor Moreau, a tale of a scientist remaking living creatures, hid his notes in code, and it was Rachel, the daughter he had abandoned, who could read it.

In Orphan Black's finale, which clone, raised inside the cloning corporation, hands over the list of all 274 sisters?

Rachel Duncan had spent years hunting and betraying her sisters, so her parting gift, the names of every one of them, is what lets the others be found and cured.

In Orphan Black, which European capital gave its name to a purge of six self-aware clones?

Helsinki was meant to leave no witnesses, but one clone survived it and resurfaces years later as the masked recluse M.K., bent on revenge.

In Orphan Black, what animal mask does the reclusive clone M.K. wear?

Sheep-masked M.K. keeps even her fellow clones at arm's length, the wariness of the only survivor of a massacre of her self-aware sisters.

What is the profession of Krystal Goderitch, the clone unaware of her origins?

Manicurist Krystal comes face to face with a fellow clone and still refuses to believe it, yet her own amateur sleuthing hands the others vital leads.

Who plays Cosima's monitor and girlfriend, Delphine Cormier, in Orphan Black?

Evelyne Brochu's Delphine starts out as a spy planted on Cosima and ends up her wife, a marriage confirmed when the actress returned for the 2024 spin-off.

Which fertility company does Evie Cho run?

BrightBorn is the fertility arm of the cloners' movement, and its boss Evie Cho goes as far as ordering the killing of the clones' original donor.

Who plays Westmorland, the cloning movement's supposedly Victorian-born founder, in Orphan Black?

Stephen McHattie's character claims to have been born in 1842, but he is a fraud: an ordinary man named John Mathieson who took the long-dead founder's identity.

Who guest-starred in Orphan Black as Jesse, the man who charms Sarah's twin?

Patrick J. Adams was starring in the legal drama Suits at the time, and he came back a year later so that Jesse could have his reunion in the third-season finale.

Which future Marvel star had a small role as a schoolteacher in Orphan Black's final season?

Simu Liu had been laid off from an accounting job only a few years earlier; four years after playing the teacher Mitchell he was the lead of Marvel's Shang-Chi.

Which Canadian actor was the other finalist for the lead role in Orphan Black?

Elliot Page was one of two names on the co-creator's final shortlist; the part went to the other after long auditions in which, he said, she 'annihilated everybody'.

Which broadcaster asked for Orphan Black's lead, Sarah, to be made British?

BBC America wanted to hear 'a little bit of British', and the creators came round to it: the accent made Sarah instantly distinct from the clones she impersonates.

Who was the acting double who played opposite Orphan Black's star in every clone-on-clone scene?

Kathryn Alexandre learned every clone's lines and mannerisms, played each scene opposite the star, and was then replaced in post-production by a second take of the same actress.

Which ability of the Technodolly camera rig makes Orphan Black's multi-clone shots possible?

Repeating its own moves exactly lets the crew film one actress several times over, once as each clone, and blend the takes into a single shot even while the camera travels.

In Orphan Black, what kind of creature is Pupok, Helena's imaginary talking companion?

A scorpion speaks to Helena in her hallucinations while her captors keep her locked in a crate, and the show's star voiced it herself, clicking noises included.

In Orphan Black, the clone Cosima is named after whom?

The show's science consultant, Cosima Herter, is a historian of science and an old friend of one of its creators, and her work on the series began as conversations between the two.

In which city was Orphan Black shot on location?

Toronto landmarks play the villains: a hospital and the old Don Jail double as the outside of the cloners' corporate headquarters.

What did a creator of Orphan Black call its deliberately placeless setting?

Generica was the price of a co-production: the creators feared that naming Canada would put off American viewers, and that claiming America would alienate Canadians.

What did Orphan Black's online fans call themselves?

#CloneClub is a phrase from the story itself, where it means the few people who are in on the secret of the clones.

Orphan Black's star went on to play which Marvel superhero on television?

She-Hulk came six years after an Emmy that was slow to arrive: voters left her first two Orphan Black seasons unnominated, shortlisted her in 2015 and gave her the prize in 2016.

Which prize did Orphan Black win for its first season?

A Peabody came after a single season: the judges called the show 'a clone cyclone' and praised its 'singular take on cloning'.

In which country did the Orphan Black clone Helena spend her childhood, sheltered by nuns?

Ukraine is where Helena spent her childhood in a convent, and years later one of its nuns shelters her again when she needs somewhere to hide.

What was the title of Orphan Black's companion talk show, launched during its third season?

After the Black began on the show's Canadian channel, and its American broadcaster liked it enough to pick it up a season later.

Which company put out the Orphan Black comic book series?

IDW Publishing's comics were co-written by the show's two creators and introduced a surviving clone months before she first appeared on screen.

Which streaming service won exclusive US rights to Orphan Black in 2014?

Amazon Prime's buyer called it exactly the kind of smart, suspenseful show its customers love to binge on, and signed before the second season had even begun.

What was the 2019 audio-series continuation of Orphan Black called?

Orphan Black: The Next Chapter picks up eight years after the finale, and the show's star returned to voice every clone herself.

Which country produced a 2017 remake of Orphan Black subtitled 7 Genes?

Japan's remake cast a South Korean in the lead: Kang Ji-young, a singer with the girl group Kara, plays a broke single mother who sees her double die.

Who stars as the amnesiac Lucy in the 2024 spin-off Orphan Black: Echoes?

Krysten Ritter's Lucy has no past to remember: she is a 'printout', a grown woman produced by a machine as a copy of somebody else.

In Orphan Black's second-season finale, what does Sarah fire into Rachel's eye from a rigged fire extinguisher?

A pencil, shot from a makeshift gun that Cosima and her lab partner built from the extinguisher, lets Sarah escape, and Rachel survives only after surgery to remove it.

Who plays Sarah's grown-up daughter in the spin-off Orphan Black: Echoes?

Keeley Hawes takes over from the child actress of the original: the girl everyone once hunted is now a scientist with a wife and son of her own.

Which Orphan Black clone, introduced in the second season, is a transgender man?

Tony turns up with a message for Beth from a dying friend, then learns from Sarah that he is one of the clones.