Robin Thede.
Oh, my god.
Listen, I wore my Trump orange.
We are reclaiming this color.
We are ready.
Yeah, no, what a day to be in New York.
What a day to be in New York.
It feels like Christmas, and just prom, just
everything wrapped into one.
I drove by Trump Tower.
They were screaming "lock him up."
I was just really--
[cheers and applause]
I'm here for the trial, you know?
I'm here for the looting.
I need a TV. - Yeah.
No, that's fair.
That's fair.
But do you really ever need an excuse to loot, Roy?
I think--
[laughter]
Speaking of Trump, before you got the HBO series,
your journey through unscripted television-- you
had your own television show.
I did.
ROY: --on BET, The Rundown, shout out to that.
Yes, thank you.
ROY: Where you quarterbacked a lot
of different political topics.
No one in the audience saw it.
That's fine.
That's why it was canceled-- you people.
No, it was fine.
Prior to that, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, which
was on this network, where you were, and correct me if I'm
wrong, the first Black woman head
writer in the history of unscripted late
night television.
That is true.
[cheers and applause]
And you worked for the Correspondents Dinner.
How much do you miss this world and talking about Trump
because Black Lady Sketch Show, so much of it
is about the Black experience and the unique perspectives
that people may not necessarily look through what Black
women go through and what Black women deal
with from a funny perspective.
Yeah, very Trump heavy.
[laughs]
Not at all, not in the least.
So how much do you miss it?
I don't miss it at all.
I have to be honest, it's not like I
don't keep up with the news.
Obviously, I am.
My mother has been in politics forever.
Like, it's very important to me,
but I don't miss having to make fun
of something that has already made fun of itself so much.
You know, but I truly--
I mean, you have gotten me-- it's actually your fault
that I'm really interested in everything that's
going on because your Gwyneth Paltrow
trial coverage was so funny.
And I was like, I cannot wait--
right?
[cheers and applause]
So good.
And I was literally on the edge of my seat
watching your take on it.
And so I was, like, what is this Trump trial going to be?
Is he going to just try to represent himself?
Is he-- is he going to get up and say,
you can't handle the truth!
And then his wig falls off.
Like, what's going to happen?
I don't know, but I'm excited to have you covering it.
I'm excited to have you at this desk.
Well, thank you, Robin.
Thank you, love.
So your program--
Oh, yeah, my program.
Your program, Black Lady Sketch Show,
entering its fourth season--
ROBIN: Crazy.
You have--
Crazy.
It's so good, you guys.
And not just in front of the camera but all
of the Black women that you employ behind the camera,
you're big on diversity.
You're big on showing Black women.
Yeah.
And putting-- and giving-- putting them on a pedestal.
In this era of so many other channels going,
we don't know what diversity is, where
is the talented Black woman?
Where do you find them?
How did you even-- did you hire all of them?
Listen, we are-- no, no. I did not.
I did not.
That's why it's a diversity problem.
You hired all the Black women.
[laughs] There are so many talented Black women
out here and women of color.
There are so many.
People-- look, people didn't know
who I was, really, till Larry Wilmore
put me on The Nightly Show.
People didn't know who a lot of these people are.
I mean, so many great people have come through our show,
everybody from Angela Bassett who said to me,
I did the show because no one asked me to do comedy.
And I'm like, if you can play Tina Turner,
you can do a sketch.
You know, and so-- and so for me, it's
like, the talent from that level to little YouTube
or TikTokkers, like I love-- there's room for all of
us there.
And I find talent by opening my eyes.
Like, and that's what people need to do.
They're everywhere.
We are everywhere doing this, in stand-up,
and improv, and sketch, on YouTube, on TikTok,
on all these platforms.
So I think you just got to be willing to see the truth
and let Black women authentically tell it.
Don't write it for us.
Don't cast us and then write for us.
Let us write for us.
And then it's going to feel legit, you know what I mean?
You can tell when a Black person is like, oh, my god,
did you guys get the new Taylor Swift?
I'm like, who wrote this?
No shade, Taylor Swift has Black fans.
But I'm just saying, like, it feels--
our show-- I think the key to our show
is that it feels authentic.
ROY: Absolutely.
You know, so I think that's what's dope.
ROY: Where-- give me--
give me one-- AUDIENCE MEMBER: Woo!
- Yeah, woo! - I love a good woo.
Woo!
Give me one character--
I like your hair.
--because you are essentially--
you're the Lorne Michaels of this.
You're the Michael Che. You're the Colin Jost.
You're the Kenan Thompson. You're the writers.
Wow.
You're all the people behind the scenes.
That's a lot.
Thank you.
You build this whole-- you built this entire thing.
So you have this array of characters.
Give me one character that you think
who-- which one resonates the most with people?
Well, I don't know if it's resonates,
but definitely the one who causes the most controversy
and who people always quotes to me is Dr. Hadassah Olayinka
Ali-Youngman, Pre-PhD.
ROY: I'm sorry, who is this character?
This is her--
Dr. Hadassah Olayinka Ali-Youngman, Pre-PhD.
She is a "hertep," which is a female version of a hotep.
So she believes that women should not be working,
although she has a talk show.
She believes that women should not
wear shoes, although she does.
So she's just kind of a hypocrite who kind of spews
these conspiracy theories and says things like, see,
see, see, if you break down the word bacon, it means bay-con.
They're trying to get us to cozy up to the conspiracy.
And it's just like, what does this mean?
What does this mean?
So yeah, so she's a lot of fun.
She's a lot of fun.
People tend to scream, "see, see,
see" at me down the street, which is great.
Well, I can relate to the character
because I follow a lot of people like that on Facebook.
I'm so happy you came.
A Black Lady Sketch Show returns for its fourth season
April 14 on HBO and HBO Max.