“It really just showed me the value in having a specific voice and tapping into a very specific audience,” she told Jarvis.
The 32-year-old Stanford graduate developed an interest in acting when she was cast as Demetrius in her elementary school production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It was also around this time that she started writing short stories. But it wasn’t until her family moved to Los Angeles when she was in 6th grade and she attended a live taping of “Moesha” that she realized she could have a career in Hollywood.
“It was a pink script. I want to say that I won it and I was like, \"Wow, I have a real episodic script in my hand and this is basically, a template for me to write my own TV shows,\" she said.
Shortly after the taping, the then 12-year-old Rae wrote her own television show and sent it off to TV executives.
“The naiveté of being a 12-year-old ... I looked up the addresses for, like, NBC and ABC and just sent them to [the] CEOs.”
She went on, “You know, some of the networks wrote me back and said, ‘we don't take unsolicited scripts.’ And so then I was like, ‘OK. Well, I guess I'll just go to school then.'\"
Rae may be sending her content out a little differently these days, but her perseverance and passion have remained the same. Her motivation?
“I just couldn't picture my life and happily living my life not doing what I love,” she said.
Hear Issa Rae’s full interview on ABC Radio’s top business podcast, “No Limits With Rebecca Jarvis,” available on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, Spotify and your ABC News app.
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