Issa Rae credits her confidence to creating work she loves, her Los Angeles roots, and a tight circle of supporters. Her sense of humor came from her mother and childhood games like "Don't Laugh and Smile." She struggled in New York before returning home gave her the boost to speak up professionally.
Chapters
You're like. Like struggling. Certainly you're super broke. You're like, you just got robbed. Like, you're doing the most and you don't have to be. If you come back to la, you'll be okay.
Where does your confidence come from?
My confidence comes from doing what I love, to be honest. Like, to be able to create something from the ground up and to be able to, you know, kind of walking your purpose is a great feeling. Like, I feel validated in having gotten, you know, to this point. And it's like seeing where I can go from here. And then, of course, you know, I let my friends, I have a great group of friends that give me confidence and who also simultaneously keep me grounded. Just like, girl, you're not that tight. You good, but you calm down, you know, And I love that. And LA gives me confidence. Being here, like, trying to start my career in New York, it was humbling, you know, in a way. Cause I always wanted to be there. That stupid mantra, if you can make it here, you can make it everywhere, was always in the back of my mind. And I struggled there for a while, but I was happily struggling until I got to a point where someone kind of told me the cliff was under me. Like, girl, you're struggling, you're super broke, you're like, you just got robbed. Like, you're doing the most and you don't have to be. If you come back to la, you'll be okay, and everybody you know is here. And I didn't realize how much of a confidence booster it is to be in your hometown where you know so many people, where your family's here, where your friends are here, and it just feels easier. Even in this HBO show. Just early on, me being afraid to speak up because I felt like I didn't want to come off as like, oh, you're the bitch, or you're the difficult one. And I remember sitting at a roundtable of women just having dinner, and they were all women I admired and respected and who were just killing the game. And they all went through their respective points where they were exactly where I was. Like that pilot stage where they had that same fear, and they all overcame it in their own separate ways. And I was like, you know what? If I ever want to be on their level, I have to woman up. And what am I doing? Why am I scared to speak up and be seen as difficult when this is what I've worked so hard to do? At the end of the day, what I've worked so hard to accomplish and I will be pissed at myself if it doesn't turn out how I want it to. I have nobody to blame but myself. I definitely look to them as inspirations, as goals.
Do you have or do you think it's important to have mentors that aren't, like, you maybe aren't a woman or aren't black, that are able to help you navigate other aspects of your career?
You know, I should. I should have those. I, like, in represent, representation wise. I have those kind of people, but I've never actually sought, you know, people who weren't, you know, women or black. They're all either or for the most part. But that's a good. You just put me on deal.
Where does your sense of humor come from?
Definitely my mom, My and my siblings. Like, my mom is really, really funny and really goofy and, like, really awkward. Like, she's the one who constantly, when we're out, we'll be like, oh, my God, did I see Stephanie? Stephanie. Hey, girl. Oh, my God, that is not Stephanie. And like, every. Every time, like, it's never Stephanie, Mom. It's never her. But it's just like, she was always big about, like, playing games with us as a child. Like, we would all have dinner. There were five of us. I'm the middle child. And we would always have dinner together. And she would introduce these dumb table games. One of our favorite ones was called the Don't Laugh and Smile game. And the object was just to be the last person standing at the end of the dinner who hadn't laughed or smiled. So it was just the entire dinner was just us trying to make each other laugh so you get out. And introducing that really, like, sharpened our sense of humor skills. And that's why whenever I think about, like, creating content, I'm like, will this make, you know, my older brothers laugh? It'll make my younger siblings laugh. She's really the source of a lot of our sense of humor.
Fantastic. Issa, thank you so much for talking to us today. It's been a pleasure.
