Issa Rae

I'm such a fan of Shonda and everything that she was building.

She has built over time.

But to witness that firsthand, like I was in their offices working with their development team.

It was just so cool.

And I approached it with the...

What can I make for you mindset as opposed to what do I want to make and what's my voice?

And I forgot that in that process, like they had wanted to work with me because of my voice.

And so that process was just I describe it as I turned in kind of like mush at the end of the day because I didn't know it was just voiceless, voiceless material because I didn't have a POV.

And so, yeah, the ABC ended up passing on the project and I was like, I blew my one shot.

And then HBO called after that to just see what I had.

The most...

Anxious I ever felt was the waiting period to get the pilot for to get the green light to shoot the pilot.

That was such a long process.

And that felt like literally my last chance to do it right.

Because, again, I was now at my dream network.

I they gave me HBO gave me a chance to do another draft.

And that's when I was like, I'm just going to make it as raw as I can.

Kind of reworked some things, reworked a lot of things and then just sat there like I hope they say yes.

And I remember the day I got the email that we were going to be able to shoot a pilot.

And I was like, I'm not going to fuck this up.