By Selena Hughes
New York Magazine hosted its popular Vulture Festival for the first time in Los Angeles at the classic Roosevelt Hotel. It was a pop culture extravaganza that took fans into the minds of Hollywood creatives from actors to show creators and writers.
From her origins in YouTube to her successful HBO gig, Issa Rae is on a roll through Hollywood. Issa sat down with Vulture Magazine writer, Alex Jung and for starters, played a brief round of “Never Have I Ever…”
Issa admitted to crying in public while reading a book and said she has never dated a celebrity. She went on to discuss the DNA and origins of HBO’s Insecure, an HBO original comedy-drama series based on Issa’s popular web series Awkward Black Girl. Here are a couple of highlights that you may or may not have known about Issa and the show:
Jung asked if there was a lot of DNA from Awkward Black Girl in Insecure and she responded “absolutely!”
Awkward Black Girl was filmed when Rae was 25 and she admitted to having grown since it’s inception and going through new experiences so when HBO came knocking, she wanted to do something specific for them with the show. That’s how Insecure was born.
On the character’s name being Issa, she shared that the character’s name is Issa because “I just wasn’t thinking…We were creating a show and it was all untitled and at the time I wasn’t thinking about what the show would be called, I wasn’t thinking about what the character’s name would be, with the exception of Molly because it was so close to my friends name and I based it on her. But I was just like, oh I’m a producer for now and I just never changed it, I forgot to change it!”
Insecure airs on HBO Sundays at 10/9c.