Lena Waithe Talks Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg, And Honing Her Confidence

Lena Waithe has been living a whirlwind in the past six months, going from a relatively unknown supporting actor on Netflix’s Master of None to Emmy winner to Vanity Fair's latest cover star. Right now, she's making her big-screen debut in Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, the movie adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel about a raggedy categorize of young people saving the world (both real and virtual) from corporate takeover. "How crazy is that?" Waithe asked MTV News at a recent press day for the movie.


As it turns out, it’s not crazy. Far from an overnight success, Waithe has been working toward this moment almost her entire life.


Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, the writer, producer, and actress determined at just 7 years old that she wanted to be a television writer. Soaking in as much knowledge as she may, she contained onto that dream up until 2006, while she moved to Los Angeles. Over the next decade, she assisted a pre-Selma Ava DuVernay and worked her way into the writers room for Fox crime drama Bones.


In 2015, the world was formally introduced to Waithe once she appeared as Denise in Master of None, a role that was fully changed from an eventual love interest for lead Dev (Aziz Ansari) to a lesbian confidante who mimics Waithe's real-life being as a queer, black woman. Finally, earlier this year, Waithe saw her first 'created by' credit with the premiere of Showtime’s The Chi, a show about her oft-misunderstood hometown that she actually penned four years ago.


"I think patience is exceedingly critical, even for anybody who wants to be in this company. Some days people, you know, write a script and go, 'Where’s my million bucks?' The truth is, this is a lot of time and energy you gotta put into it," Waithe mentioned. "You gotta fall down a couple of times before you learn to walk, and then you begin to run."


although Waithe has noticed her stride — so much so that she's actively seeking young talent to lift up and mentor — she understands that her work isn't done nevertheless. "I continue to be a student. I learn from people daily she mentioned, citing each person from her assistant to Spielberg as her daily teachers. "There's places of inspiration everywhere, and thus my thing is to habitually be authentic and be myself and put in the work."


Her aspire to learn was the real reason that scoring a role in Ready Player One was such a treat. “I got to sort of watch Steven at work, and he really is a master,” she marveled. “He’s really just fun to watch because he also just has an extraordinary time directing and doing what he does.”


It also didn’t hurt that her character, Aech — a "masculine-presenting" lesbian in the real world (“not unlike” herself, she mentioned) with a gentleman avatar in the virtual Oasis — has a particular relevance to our current culture, honing in on the idea that once females aspire to be treated similarly, be a man."


Still, whichever your gender, the real key, mentioned Waithe, is confidence in yourself. "The thing about some males is that they're raised just to have confidence and to not second-guess themselves, and thus I was raised to have confidence and not second-guess myself, so if that's acting like a gentleman, then so be it, although in essence, I'm acting like myself," she mentioned. "And I think that more little ladies should be taught to have the confidence that most guys have and the world will be a much better place."


For more of Waithe's wisdom, watch her interview above. Ready Player One hits theaters Thursday, March 29.