As told to 
Yvonne Orji moved from Nigeria to the U.S. when she was six years old, survived boarding school, earned a Master's in Public Health, dodged med school, and worked in Liberia all before allowing herself to try stand-up comedy for the first time. "Put me in a war-torn country rather than go to med school," she jokes, on set with ELLE.com.
Orji's first comedy show was a Miss Nigeria in America pageant. "I just took out a pen and pad and was like, what's funny growing up Nigerian in America? I created a five minute set based on my life, things my mom has said, things I feel like every Nigerian kid or immigrant kid could experience and lo and behold people laughed and then I started hosting things from there," she says. "Standup was my gateway drug."
The gateway led to writing, directing, and starring in her own show called First Gen about a Nigerian-American girl who drops out of med school to become a standup comic–"Life imitating art—but I just realized like we've never seen Africa on TV." After releasing First Gen, Orji sent it to Insecure's creator Issa Rae, who helped get the word out. "It ended up being my audition tape in a way," says Orji who landed the role of Issa's indispensable best friend Molly, a corporate attorney who dominates at work and struggles in her personal life to navigate LA's dismal dating scene.
Here, the rising newcomer shares her thoughts on beauty, diversity, and why she'll always shop in the men's section.
On finding herself in high school
I came to America in '89, and went to high school in '97. I started experimenting more with makeup in high school because I went to an all-girls boarding school. I grew up with three older brothers, so I was very much a tomboy. In high school, I was surrounded by nothing but women, and they're like, 'we tweeze our eyebrows!' I was like, 'what is this thing?' One of my roommates was from Saudi Arabia and she started threading me. High school is really when I came into my own. There are definitely pictures of me with dark liner and gloss—that was the look! It was dark lip liner and just gloss in the middle.
Everyone used M.A.C's Chestnut—even now, when I go to M.A.C, every black woman uses Chestnut as like her staple lip liner. When you find something that works for you, you're like, 'I'm using this! This is my color.'
On social media versus reality
People say to me, 'Oh my God. I just saw your Instagram. You're slaying it!' I'm like, 'Thank you, but Instagram is not real.' That was a glam squad. We get so caught up in like, 'This is what they must look like all the time!' No! I've got scars from old pimples, and I'm trying to get rid of them. 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. Alicia Keys is doing this whole no-makeup thing and in my mind I'm like, 'Alicia, not right now, boo, because I don't have your skin! When I have it, I promise you I'll be right there with you.'
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. I think that's what life is about, just having the options to or not to do.
On feeling comfortable in her body
I've never been 100 percent comfortable with my body. My arms and legs have always been great, but my abs are my problem areas. For instance, there's a scene in episode eight where Molly is wearing a crop top and I'm totally sucking in the entire time. For the jacuzzi scene where I had to wear a bathing suit, I begged the wardrobe stylist—Ayanna James–to get me a sexy one-piece with cut-outs. I can do cut-outs!' When I tell people I wear Spanx, they're always like, 'You don't need Spanx!' and I'm like, I need Spanx.' I lost a little bit of weight to play Molly, and it was the slimmest I've been in a while, but I still wasn't as toned as I would have liked.
My comfortability with my body and what I wear is a work in progress. When my stylist Toye Adedipe gives me something with a super drop neck, I'm just like, 'That looks like a lot of work. That looks like I gotta have tape.' Any time I have to do tape, I'm like, 'Nah.' But he has been able to push me outside of my comfort zone, to be like, 'Yvonne, you're a woman. You're a lady, you have a nice body.' He's helping me realize, your body is actually better than you think it is.
On her 'Insecure' workout plan
I was probably my most fit when I was working on the show. I was hiking and doing ClassPass. I cut out carbs for the month before production and I pretty much ate fruits and vegetables and protein, essentially salmon and chicken. Whenever I would get tempted with sweets or anything bread-y, I would ask myself, 'Is this worth it?' You know what this cookie tastes like. You know what spaghetti and meatball marinara tastes like. If it's a matter of cutting out carbs or adding an extra 30 minutes on the elliptical, I will cut out these carbs. It was very much a cost-balance analysis.
I definitely kept a Snickers mini—that's my thing—frozen Snicker minis are my thing. Because I like the extra crunch, like you work for it. They were my cheat when I needed something sweet. I believe in being diligent but also cut yourself some slack. It's okay in the grand scheme of life.
On representation and diversity
With the prominence of the first family, there's been a push for curly-haired girls, natural looks, mixed kids. You were really seeing that representation, especially in commercials. They hold the highest position in the land, so it would be in our best interests to represent them in our products, right? I just want marketers, I want anybody who has anything to do with image, to realize that it's so much better when people can see all of themselves in products, in marketing.
Where I go to get my nails done, they always have runway shows playing on the TV. And you'll see like 20 models and then I'll finally see one black girl or one light-skinned girl. I'm just like, 'Oh, that's what that would look like on my skin.' She's not even necessarily my color or my hue. Just the slight variation in skin tone lets me know, 'I could totally wear that outfit.' Imagine if of the 20 girls that came before, five of them were brown. It's not like there are no tall, black girls. It's not like black girls can't Naomi Campbell walk. The fact that it's called Naomi Campbell walk—a black girl redefined what the walk was.
On cultivating inclusivity
People of color have been shut out for so long so we work harder, we work smarter to make a statement. When it comes to clothes, our bodies move differently, we accentuate clothes differently. That's something to be celebrated. That's not something to be like, 'Oh, she has a booty so this outfit is gonna look a little different on her than on this girl who is just like a clean, easy palette.' Yeah, well everybody who's buying your clothes does not have a clean, easy palette. I just hope we just think more inclusively.
Bobbi Brown does such an excellent job of having makeup hues that appeal to a wide spectrum of women of color, that I initially thought she was a black woman. Everyone should lead the charge of inclusivity. it shouldn't be left to organizations of color, or the 'urban' division of a brand. There's this market that's untapped. Even if you just added one product in your whole line specifically catered to people of color, you would be heralded as somebody who cared, who included us, who thought beyond the norm.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
