Yvonne Orji, 38, wrapped the final season of her HBO comedy-drama series Insecure last year, and according to the Emmy-nominated actress, it was an emotional experience for her. In an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife to promote her partnership with T.J. MAXX, Yvonne reflected on the final days playing Molly Carter on set and confirmed that she misses the beloved series already.
“I’m a fan like y’all are fan. Y’all act like we just say goodbye, like, ‘Well, good luck to those people, bye.’ It’s like, no, we miss it,” Yvonne told us. “Those are genuine tears that we were crying like our final week.”
Yvonne also revealed that the end of Insecure was “really sad” for the entire cast and crew, who couldn’t celebrate normally due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Our show is such a show where all of us are like entrenched in each other’s worlds. And so to have to be separated our final season we were like, ‘Nah, this is not how we were supposed to go out,’ ” the actress said. “So that really made it hard. But you know, we found ways to come together. Every time me and Issa [Rae], or me, Issa and Jay [Ellis], whoever we see each other, it’s like we didn’t work together everyday for six years,” Yvonne explained. “Like, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ It’s just like, ‘I just saw you in Miami girl.’ But we have this ‘I love being around you, I love seeing you’, and we genuinely have a mutual affection for one another.”
As for her iconic character Molly, a corporate attorney who has career success but difficulty with dating, Yvonne strongly believes that Molly got her happy ending well beyond her wedding in the series finale. “I mean, why wouldn’t she,” Yvonne told us, noting that Molly “grew up” a lot throughout the five-season series.
With Insecure beyond her, Yvonne’s focused on her upcoming standup comedy special on HBO. “I’m so excited. I would describe it as grown woman comedy,” she said about the project. “It’s filled with so much growth topics, things that I personally was experiencing in the pandemic. Everything from estate planning to friendship breakups to solo travel, I just talked about all those things.”
Yvonne’s also teamed with T.J. Maxx to launch Find Your Maxx, where Yvonne will serve as a personal mentor for one woman throughout the program which is designed to give her all the tools and resources needed to help her kick-start her journey to becoming her Maxx self. “What we have seen in the last two and a half years, it is not time to wait to live our life to the max because baby tomorrow is not promised,” she told us. “And so it is that thing of like, if you start today, tomorrow, you will be further along than you were yesterday.”