Waithe shares a funny story about testing for “Master of None” and her advice to actors auditioning when “the safe choices aren’t happening anymore.”
“The Chi” creator Lena Waithe moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of writing for television. Never did Waithe — who recently played a major supporting role in “Ready Player One” and was first put on Hollywood’s radar with her role in “Master of None” — aspire to be a performer.
“If someone was going to tell me I was going to be on a Netflix show or Spielberg movie, I would never have believed them,” said Waithe when she was a guest on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. Waithe credits casting director Allison Jones for giving her the unexpected break, which she believes is a great example of why diversity hiring works. “The thing with the casting situation with ‘Master of None’ was unique because [creators Alan Yang and Aziz Ansari] said, ‘Just send us interesting people before we start…
