Issa Rae Says “Insecure” Character Molly Is Inspired By Her Real Friend: She always calls me to the carpet when I’m f*cking up.

Yvonne Orji, Issa Rae

Molly On ‘Insecure’ Inspired By Issa Rae’s Real Life Friend

It’s no surprise that personal experiences inspire some of the content for Issa Rae on her hit HBO comedy, Insecure. In fact, she says that the character ‘Molly’ reflects some of the friendships that she has in her real life. She says,

It feels like I’m cheating, but I tapped into my real life friendships, you know? I have a lot of best friends and I thought, which of those friends could portray this particular friendship [at the center of the show]?

One friend stood out to me because of our dynamic. I always look up to her because I feel like I constantly have to get it together. She always calls me to the carpet when I’m f*cking up, but even when I’m f*cking up, she has my back.

She adds,

I can say that for a lot of my friends, and to not see that [on screen] — to constantly see black women fighting and plotting against each other, really gets to me because that’s not what I see to be true of my friends.

Issa is also open to how the series shows black mundaneness.

Insecure also proves that it’s okay to just show the mundaneness of black lives — not everything needs to be about harrowing black suffering, which can be overwhelming. It’s important to show the mundaneness because it shows us as human, and we don’t get to have those moments of celebrating ourselves. We have a very specific struggle even in the mundane, like with micro-aggressions. But that doesn’t mean the world stops. We still keep moving. We’re so trained to continue.

And as for those intense sex scenes that always has fans talking, Issa says that thankfully HBO gives them the creativity to incorporate it into the show.

For HBO, we have so much license to show black people loving and f****. Why wouldn’t we take advantage of that? We don’t get to see black lust in a normalized and natural way that isn’t hyper-sexualized. Young black people have sex. Sometimes it’s good sex, sometimes it’s bad sex, sometimes it’s revenge sex. There’s so many different facets. It’s such a privilege to show that and it feels so real. The writer in me is always excited to write those scenes. The performer is like, “Oh, shit. Why the fuck did I write this because I got to do it?

Insecure airs Sundays on HBO.

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