The thing about black women and black hair is that you just have to experiment.
— Yvonne Orji
I had my masters in public health, and the goal was to be a doctor, and organic chemistry let me know that that was not going to happen, as did my fear of blood.
I'll probably always opt for makeup because I just like the way it feels. You can play with it and create different looks, and I think that's fun. But I also want the option to not need it.
New York is a walking city, so you'll be dressed to the nines, and you'll go out, and you feel more special and more pretty because more people acknowledge you.
My faith - as well as my Nigerian culture - really gave me the substance and foundation to be who I desire to be in life.
I say all the time that when you first meet me, you know three things right off the bat: I'm Nigerian, I love to laugh, and I love Jesus.
Every time you're on stage, you're acting.
When it comes to black female comedians, it's like, if you're not overweight, are you funny? There's rules, like, you can't be skinny and pretty and funny. I'm all three, sorry to break it to you.
I want to own a comedy club.
I entered the Miss Nigeria in America pageant - yes, it's a thing that existed. This was when I was getting my masters.
I believe in the equal and opposite: If I exist, there is an equal and opposite version of me, and so however long I have to wait, and wherever he happens to be, we'll find it. Sometimes it's like, 'Jesus, where he at?'
I think there is this narrative that if you are a black woman, and you are strong, and you are educated, it's like, 'Good luck getting a black man.'
I was so focused on advancing in my career that I didn't have enough emotional capacity for dating.
I was bullied because I have this thick Nigerian accent.
For me, staying ready has always been, like, the preparations: do the behind-the-scenes or do what you think that's not sexy that nobody will see, but when they do see it, it's like, 'Oh, snap... what she's doing on her own, we'll add to that, and it'll blow up.'
I want to do more good work. That's very much my parents' influence in me.
Auto-pay is not for convenience; it's for the gainfully employed.
My mom would always say, 'Hair is a woman's beauty.' I cut my hair all off. I was completely bald, and that was, like, 'What in the world?' My mom was like, 'What happened?' She had so many questions.
You can't say you're an actor if you've never acted, and you can't act if no one gives you an opportunity, but they won't give you an opportunity because you've never acted. You're like, 'What in the world? Someone give me a chance!'
My actual desire is to be able to comfortably walk out of my house without any makeup on and feel as beautiful as I do when my makeup artist beats my face.
I don't even know anyone who hasn't watched 'Sex and the City.' If you didn't, we can't be friends.
Over the years, my relationship with God has changed my life for the better - it's grown me up, given me a sense of purpose, and grounded me in my identity.
On a man, I love Tom Ford's Tobacco Vanille. But I wear Orchid Soleil - I love a sweet smell.
I went to an all-girls boarding school in Maryland. I used to laugh at the girls in the theater program - I was pre-med, National Honors Society; I was on that track.
I'm just gonna talk about being Nigerian-American. I'm gonna talk about being single. I'm gonna talk about what happened to me on the train today. I'm gonna talk about so many other things that, as a comic, you're able to talk about because you see the world in sarcasm.
My father just instilled in me that either you're going to be No. 1 or nothing at all.
When something is not great, I'm not going to eat it. It's not enough to just get full. It's like, how does this make you feel?
As strong as we are, we have our moments. My mama is an African woman who had four kids and was a nurse for 25 years, and she had her moments. I've seen her cry.
I have a show called 'First Gen' that David Oyelowo is executive producing.
I remember talking to old-school African American grandpops, and they're just like, 'When I saw my wife, I looked up from across the street, and I said, 'That girl gon' be my wife someday.' And we've been married 45 years.' Like, what? That's all it took?
I'm grounded in who I am.
There are different types of experiences, and all of them are valid, and all of them deserve to be portrayed in a real way.
There's random people calling my phone: 'Your mother gave me your number.' My mother has tried to set me up so many times long-distance.
'First Gen' is kind of the ode to my parents and to really all immigrant children who come here with kind of a preemptive expectation placed on them, and then they get there, and they realize the American dream is bigger than, sometimes, what our parents dreamt.
I believe in being diligent but also cut yourself some slack. It's okay in the grand scheme of life.
High school is really when I came into my own.
I grew up with three older brothers, so I'm very much a tomboy in real life.
I grew up Catholic, so I had a more traditional relationship with religion.
I love a dark brown blush, like brown on brown.
I always say my Christianity and my virginity don't limit options. I think that they refine my options.
I don't look at God as some boring dude in the sky that tells me what to do all day. I legitimately be like, 'Yo, you know what, G, that's crazy how that happened. That's dope. You know, you the real MVP.'
For me, comedy was deftly terrifying.
How many shows on TV do you see young black people, both women and men, really embody a full-fledged human being, flaws and all?
People are surprised I do comedy! And I'm like, 'Guys, that's all I have been doing. For, like, forever.'
I just love new, beautiful music.
We didn't grow up with TV as a viable means of supporting yourself.
A lot of people hustle differently, and I was like, 'You know what, let me hustle and create, and let me have something to show,' cuz my hustle led to opportunity.
I can only see what's in front of me, but God can see what's behind, what's ahead of me, what's beside me, and it just makes it so much easier to release control, cuz at the end of the day, if He brought me to it, He's gonna have to bring me through it.
To not have the wherewithal to give fully to a relationship bothered me.
