Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at hewlett.org. Hey, it's Rachel. This week, we're going way back into the wildcard archives to bring you one of my favorite episodes with Lena Waithe.
Lena was one of the first guests that I wanted to bring on when we launched the show. She is a creative powerhouse who doesn't just have big ambitions. She's got massive amounts of talent and curiosity and compassion. I loved talking with Lena Waithe, and I hope you enjoy listening to the conversation. What makes you irrationally defensive? Irrationally defensive? Oh my gosh.
I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the game where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life, questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one back on me. My guest this week is actress and producer Lena Waithe.
Chapter 2: What inspired Lena Waithe to pursue a career in entertainment?
It's my least favorite thing is getting something wrong. And that can be in many ways, you know, it'd be a relationship, you know, some trivia, you know what I mean? I love that those are in the same breath. Yeah. Lena Waithe knows what she wants. And what she wants is for people to look outside of their own lives to try and understand other people and the choices that they make.
Lena Waithe's TV shows and films are these powerful little empathy engines. Lena became the first black woman ever to win an Emmy for comedy writing on the show Master of None. She's also the creator of the comedy series Boomerang in 20s. She wrote the film Queen and Slim and was the producer on the movie Dear White People. But for me, Lena's real triumph is The Chi.
The show takes place where Waithe grew up on the south side of Chicago. It's about black people living at the margins of society with little to no room for error. It's also about family and loyalty and joy. And I love this show because every character is given their full humanity. You cannot put anyone in a tidy column of good or bad or say, this person is worthy of respect and this person's not.
People are complicated, beautiful, and they are broken. And Lena Waithe doesn't want you to look away because if you do, you're going to miss the truth that she's putting out into the world, which is that judging people is harder when you start to understand them. Lena Waithe, welcome to Wildcard. Oh, wow. Thank you so much for that. That means so much to me.
Every word you said really permeated my heart. So thank you very much. Thank you. Sometimes I make these big statements about artists. I'm like, God, I hope they feel that way about their work. But for me, it's like a through line through all the stuff that you do. It feels like there is a purpose in what you're doing to make other people understand how other people live.
Yeah, I think what writing has taught me is that I cannot judge anyone because I can't judge these characters. So who am I to not judge characters but then walk through the world and judge people? And so it's a writer's job to witness humanity. I'm still a human being. I don't love every person. I don't get along with every person.
But I have to step back and try to understand why a person is who they are and why they are the way they are. Yeah. So I owe you a huge debt of gratitude, not just because you made great stuff that I got to watch, but hello, A Different World. So this was like my big excuse for me to go back and watch old reruns of A Different World. That's my favorite thing to do.
All the young people, they're like, what even is that? Oh, my gosh. Okay, so for those who don't know, we should just say A Different World was this Cosby Show spinoff from the 1980s. I was obsessed with it growing up. It was so awesome. Yes. And you were too because you named your production company after the school that the show was centered on.
It was this fictional college called Hillman University. Your production company is called Hillman Grad. Yeah. I totally wanted to go to Hillman and I love that show so much. So thank you for giving me an excuse to go back and watch all those episodes. And I love that you are representing with a different world hat on today. Yes, yes. You know, I say I wear this hat a lot.
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Chapter 3: How did Lena Waithe make history at the Emmy Awards?
So I would sit there and watch all the shows she used to watch. Like, you know, we would watch Hunter, Matlock, Murder, She Wrote. And And we would just like talk about the TV shows on television. And she would always say, you're always analyzing these shows. If there's anyone that wouldn't be surprised that I'm in this business, it would be her. May she rest.
Because I would just sit and talk to her all the time. Like she couldn't enjoy the shows because I would be trying to figure out what was going to happen or what was going to go down or what was going on with this character. But that was always a safe space. Just being in that room with her and just spending time with her. Yeah.
Chapter 4: What themes does Lena explore in her show 'The Chi'?
Yeah. Okay. Moving on. Three new cards. I got to go at one now. One, two, three, one. Yeah. When did you feel like you found your people? Oh, man. I think, you know... Michael Svoboda, who was a writer's PA on the game when I was an assistant at Girlfriends, he and I just really vibed.
And he's just like, yo, I got a writer's group that I do where we sit and we write original pilots that we're working on to kind of help us get some stuff done. And I walked into that writer's group and I met Justin Simeon, who was working on something which ultimately would become Dear White People. And then Justin and I just really clicked and bonded and became friends.
So that's really when it happened. So I just, like, I landed in there and I just, like, found all these amazing people that I'm still tight with today. Tell me how that jibes with Chicago and your experience there because it sounds like this – Your people were writers. Like you needed to find your writer people. Yeah. Did you not have that in some way in Chicago?
You know, I was a bit of an oddball, you know, in Chicago because I was obsessed with TV, obsessed with like movies. Like people go to the movies and watch TV shows. It's a pastime. And I think my family could tell it was more than that for me. Was it moving you in a different way than it was your peers? I would be just enthralled by it and be thinking about it.
Like, I have, like, some chest tattoos. I have, like, a power line from Goofy Movie and Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas over here.
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Chapter 5: How does Lena Waithe view the complexity of human nature?
Like, because those are two very important movies for me. I have, like, a Wizard of Oz tattoo. I have Judy Garland here. You know, I have the lion. I have the scarecrow. I have all of it. Like, because... That movie was more than a movie for me. It was almost like a Bible to life. It's like where you are, you always think there's something out there that's better than where I'm at right now.
But the truth is when you go out there and get to the Emerald City and meet the wizard, you realize it's all, it's not really what you thought it was. And then all you long for when you're in the Emerald City is to go where? Yeah. Exactly. And it's a lesson none of us really learn still. You know, we still are trying to go, like, I got to get to the Wizard.
If I could just get to the Emerald City. If I could just, you know, I'm going to keep, everything will be fine. And then you get there, you're just like, I'm still not fine. And so I think what the big reason why Wizard of Oz is such a religion and a reminder for me is that there is no Emerald City that will feel like home. Mm-hmm. Was that sad for you? Was there a grief attached to that?
No, I think what it did was it helped me to stop. It helped me to slow down. I'm still driven and ambitious, but I've learned that there's no there there. Yeah. You know, it's like we're all chasing something because the truth is there's always something you want. And that's fine. You know, you need that thing to make you want to go. But you got to remember that it'll be nice if it happens.
It'll be cool. But you don't want it to be a thing that if you don't get it, that you can't find happiness. Yeah. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. Hey, everybody.
Ever since we launched Wildcard, there is one thing that you have asked about more than anything else. Where can I get the Wildcard deck? We hear it constantly. You've been very patient, and I'm so excited to finally announce that it is here, the Wildcard deck. It's available at the NPR shop. You can find it at shopnpr.org. And we've selected some of our very favorite questions from the show.
And we made this custom deck for you, our audience. It is just a phenomenal way to think about your own memories, insights, and beliefs over dinner, with the family, maybe on a road trip with friends. It's a way to connect and learn new things about people you are just meeting or people you have known all of your life. Check it out at shopnpr.org. We are so excited for you to try it out.
Again, shopnpr.org. Okay, round two. This is insights. Okay. Things you have learned or things you are learning. All right. One, two, three. I'm going to go with three. Three. What's a hard truth you've had to learn about yourself? Oh, man. A hard truth. You have a skip and a flip. I know. You're like Lena if you want to. Okay, you know what? I'll do a flip and have you answer first. Okay.
Then I'll go. Yeah, okay. Yeah, give me some time to think about the hard truth about myself. Oh, I mean, there's so many. I know. Yeah, I'm trying to think about which one I want to share. So what is the one that we can say? That we can talk about on NPR. Right. I am more selfish than I am. Than I like to think I am. That's good. That's good. I can relate to that for sure.
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Chapter 6: What lessons does Lena Waithe draw from 'The Wizard of Oz'?
Thank you so much for pulling so much out of me today. I appreciate it. I hope this conversation sparked something in somebody. Yeah, me too. Me too. This episode was produced by Cher Vincent and edited by Dave Blanchard. It was fact-checked by Cecile Davis-Vasquez and mastered by Robert Rodriguez. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sanguini, and our theme music is by Ramteen Arabloui.
You can reach out to us at wildcard at npr.org. We're going to shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at hewlett.org.