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Behind the CameraA career guide · fact-checked July 2026
Most people know Laura Prepon as Donna or as Alex Vause. Fewer know she has quietly built a second career in the director's chair — and that she once directed herself.
From in front of the camera to behind it
Prepon became famous as an actor: eight seasons as Donna Pinciotti on That '70s Show, then six as Alex Vause on Orange Is the New Black. But alongside the acting she was teaching herself to direct — through scrappy web video, formal coursework, and eventually by stepping behind the camera on the very shows she starred in. Her path runs from a self-made web series to a marquee prison-drama episode to directing ten episodes of a Netflix revival, an unusual actor-to-director arc completed largely on sets she already knew from the inside.
Neighbros (2011)
Prepon's first real directing project was Neighbros, a comedic web series she created, directed, and edited. Built from short skits about two guys who are neighbors and friends, it starred actor Scott Michael Foster and musician Jaime Jorns. She described the work as "guerrilla film-making," and the property was picked up by Comedy Central in early 2011 — an early sign she was serious about the craft, not just dabbling.
Abide with Me (short film)
She also developed and directed the short film Abide with Me, about a ten-year-old boy left mute after witnessing his father's murder. Prepon spoke about wanting to expand it into a feature. It is the most personal and dramatic of her early directing efforts, a marked change of register from the comedy of Neighbros.
Orange Is the New Black: "The Reverse Midas Touch" (2017)
Prepon's first major scripted-television directing credit came on her own show. She directed the season 5 episode "The Reverse Midas Touch," landing in the middle of the season-long prison-riot storyline. It happened only because she kept asking: "I had been asking Jenji about directing for a while, because I had been directing for a while," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "Finally she gave me a shot and I'm so thankful for her doing that."
She has been clear about why acting makes her a better director: "Because I'm an actor, I can speak that language. I've been acting since I was 18, so I know how I like to be spoken to."
That '90s Show (2023-2024)
The Netflix revival is where Prepon's directing really stretched out. Across the series she directed ten episodes — two in Part 1 (2023) and all eight of Part 3 (2024), taking over the director's chair for an entire part — while also reprising Donna on screen. In other words, she directed herself.
She relished the deeper run: "I directed last year. But this time I got to do a bunch in a row, so you can really kind of sit deep in the saddle," she told Deadline. And on directing a cast on a set she knows intimately: "I'm so comfortable on these sets. Because I'm also an actor, there's a lot of empathy and understanding… I would never ask anybody to do anything I haven't myself done, literally, on these sets." She even slipped in visual callbacks — staging that echoed how Eric and Donna used to stand on the original show, "like muscle memory."
What she brings to the chair
The through-line of Prepon's directing is empathy earned from two decades in front of the lens. She knows how actors want to be spoken to, she refuses to ask for anything she hasn't done herself, and she pursued formal training to go with the instinct. It is a quietly impressive body of work for someone the public still files under "actor" — and, given how much she clearly enjoys it, likely not finished.