Name Lena Waithe | Role Screenwriter | |
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Occupation Actress, producer, screenwriter Similar People Justin Simien, Noel Wells, Kelvin Yu, Effie T Brown, Alan Yang Profiles | ||
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Lena D. Waithe (born May 17, 1984) is an American actress, producer, and screenwriter, best known for her role as Denise on the 2015 Netflix series Master of None. Waithe, along with Aziz Ansari, won an Emmy in 2017 for writing the "Thanksgiving" episode of Master of None.
Contents
- Issa talks w gina prince bythewood lena waithe 1 5
- smartbrowngirls live q a w lena waithe hillmangrad
- Early life
- Career
- References
smartbrowngirls live q a w lena waithe hillmangrad
Early life
Waithe was born in Chicago, Illinois. Though acting was not originally among Waithe's ambitions, she knew from the age of seven that she wanted to be a television writer, and received strong family support for her writing from her single mother and grandmother. She graduated from Evanston Township High School and from Columbia College Chicago in 2006, crediting faculty playwright Michael Fry for his teaching and encouragement.
Career
Waithe has been a writer for the Fox television series Bones, a writer for the 2012 Nickelodeon sitcom How to Rock, and a producer on the 2014 satirical comedy film Dear White People. Waithe wrote and appeared in the YouTube series "Twenties" which was produced by Flavor Unit Entertainment and optioned in 2014 by BET. In addition to writing and directing the short film "Save Me", which was shown at several independent film festivals, Waithe wrote the 2013 web series "Hello Cupid" and the 2011 viral video Shit Black Girls Say.
In 2014, Variety named Waithe as one of its "10 Comedians to Watch". In August 2015, Showtime network commissioned a pilot for an upcoming series, written by Waithe and produced by Common, which tells a young urban African-American man's coming-of-age story. Both Waithe and Common grew up on Chicago's South Side.
Waithe was cast in Master of None after meeting creator and lead actor Aziz Ansari who, with Alan Yang, had originally written Denise as a straight, white woman with the potential, according to Waithe, to evolve into one of the main character's love interests: "For some reason, [casting director] Allison Jones thought about me for it, a black gay woman." Ansari and Yang rewrote the script to make the character more like Waithe: "All of us actors play heightened versions of ourselves." She said, "I don't know if we've seen a sly, harem pants-wearing, cool Topshop sweatshirt-wearing, snapback hat-rocking lesbian on TV." She also said, "I know how many women I see out in the world who are very much like myself. We exist. To me, the visibility of it was what was going to be so important and so exciting."
In 2017, Waithe won (with Aziz Ansari) the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for their season 2 episode "Thanksgiving". She became the first black woman to win the award. Waithe described the episode as based on her coming-out experience as a lesbian. She is also developing an autobiographical drama series called The Chi.