Issa Rae

I entered a Sundance writing contest with a friend and we were semi-finalists.

And I just wanted to make the movies that I love that weren't

in theaters anymore.

The Love Joneses and the Love and Basketballs, all those disappeared and I was like, I want to make those.

Those movies make me feel way.

And then I started making web series when I went to LA and tried to sell those movies that I was talking about and there just wasn't an audience for them.

I would just dabble with trying to make an audience online.

And that turned into like, I really like doing this.

And now I'm building a following.

And I kind of just want to create for online until the right opportunity comes along.

And then a few right opportunities came along that I fucked up.

Thanks for telling us that.

For sure.

Please say more.

I mean, I'm very candid about an ABC opportunity with Shondaland, Shonda Rhimes' company, that I just wasn't ready for creatively because I was too scared.

Like you were offered something and decided not to do it?

I had pilot opportunities.

And I pitched a show for them for ABC and their development team was so great in terms of like holding my hand through the pilot process.

Because despite wanting to be a filmmaker, despite writing for my own web series, I had never really written a TV show before and much less like a network pilot.

And so I was also...