http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/fashion/day-out-laverne-cox-rocky-horror-picture-show.html 2016-10-13 19:20:49 For Laverne Cox, Life Is a Blur, and So Is New York On a visit home, the star of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” counts her blessings, then discusses politics and dating. === Laverne Cox “I’ve been missing New York so much,” she said, reaching out as if to embrace the city. “I’m scared of heights, but oh, my God, to get back and to get to see this. It’s like ummmm-mmhhh!” She waved to the spire of the This striking Emmy-nominated transgender actress and activist, best known for her role as Sophia, a transgender inmate on She was squeezing in a tour of the Ms. Cox, dressed in a slinky black Marciano dress and 6 feet 3 inches in her four-inch Louboutins, was unsure of her flight time, though she knew a car was coming at 4:30 p.m. to deliver her to the airport. “Girl, that’s my life now,” she said. “All I know is where I have to be next.” Her life has been a busy blur since her success on “Orange” in 2013, and she’s still on the show. There was “Rocky” showcases her four-octave singing range — “I can sing baritone and soprano” — and her dancing. Ms. Cox earned a bachelor of fine arts in dance from Marymount Manhattan College but said she was much younger then: “I can still do a split, but these days I have to stretch before I do it.” Friendly and funny, Ms. Cox, raised in Mobile, Ala., answers any and all questions — well, almost all. “Age and weight we don’t do,” she said, explaining that being black and transgender puts enough hurdles in her career path. She believes revealing her age would only add another. “I’m living this life that is the life I’ve dreamed of my whole life and that most people don’t get to live,” Ms. Cox said. “Now this is very recent and, God willing, I’ll be able to keep it going.” From 102 stories up, Ms. Cox spotted the After the tour, Ms. Cox shed her heels for flats (“They’re from Amazon.com”) and walked a block to The restaurant’s Southern-fried chicken had her salivating, but instead she ordered deviled eggs (“That’s mostly protein”), hush puppies, a shrimp sandwich and an unsweetened iced tea. “When I was under 21, I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain a pound,” she said. “After transitioning, when I stopped producing testosterone, I just filled out, and I kept filling.” Over lunch, she whipped through topics. Yes, she’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton in the election and considers much of Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric racist. “It’s not a dog whistle; it’s a bark,” she said. “And I think Republicans are trying to use trans as a wedge issue, the same way they used gay marriage in the last election.” Yes, her post-“Orange” celebrity has improved her love life. “The trans thing — fame mitigates that for a lot of the men,” she said. “It makes them more willing and open to dating me than they might have been before.” (She currently has a steady beau.) The waitress brought a dessert menu, but Ms. Cox waved it away. Not without some reluctance, it seemed. “If you could eat as much ice cream as you want and not get fat, and not get high cholesterol and diabetes, I would never have sex again,” she said. “I would just curl up every night with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream, and I would be good.”