After historic Emmy win, Lena Waithe aims to open minds with Showtime's 'The Chi'
LOS ANGELES - Lena Waithe, the actress-writer best known for her work on Netflix's "Master of None," is perched in front of a Silver Lake Boulevard cafe ruminating about the first time she felt she saw herself - in the abstract sense - on television.
"Vintage Whoopi Goldberg," she offers flat out.
Waithe was a child when she was introduced to the TV special of Goldberg's career-sparking one-woman production, "The Spook Show," and found herself in awe.
"When she first was coming out she was doing prophetic work," Waithe explains, leaning forward onto the iron patio table. "She was so raw and so honest that Hollywood came to her, not the other way around ... . I just remember thinking as a kid, 'Oh, she knows me. But she's never met me.' And that to me, as a little black kid, was really phenomenal."
Now, at 33, the Chicago native is hard at work paying it forward. This is not a woman interested in being the
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