- Hey, it's Aziz Ansari.
We're here watching a clip from season three
of "Master of None."
I'm with Naomi Ackie, who plays Alicia.
And we're about to watch the scene from episode four,
where her character is going through
the arduous journey of IVF.
- Okay.
Like that, like this.
- [Aziz] From all the conversations I had
with women, friends of friends, that had done this,
this first injection moment is quite interesting.
And intimidating.
And yeah, Naomi, you say some stuff.
- [Naomi] Yeah.
I remember we had the IVF experts in,
and they were teaching me how to do the mixing stuff.
So they were real, like, needles.
Except for the one that I put in my body.
But the first needle, super, super intimidating.
And it's just so complicated.
- Get rid of you.
You are fucking huge.
- Originally, it was gonna be like,
"Oh, we're gonna cut to a clock
"and show some time passing.
"We're gonna split it up."
And then,
you know, we were talking about the scene,
and you told me, like, "Hey, I just think we should just
"hold on this spot.
"I'll just walk off camera, come back."
And I was like, "Whoa, that's exactly right.
"That's what we're doing here.
"We're gonna live in this moment with her
"and do it that way."
I also just wanna mention,
the actress that plays your mom
is the amazing Marianne Jean-Baptiste
who won a lot of acclaim and awards
for her performance in "Secrets and Lies."
So I was so excited we got to work with her.
And she was awesome.
And you guys really had the same, like, British accents
and everything.
(phone rings)
- [Sharon] Hello?
- Hi, Mum?
- [Sharon] Hello, darling. How you doing?
- Um.
I'm just trying to do this, um.
This injection thing, and it's like.
It's like, really hard.
- [Sharon] Oh.
Well, can't somebody from the hospital
come over to do it for you?
- No, mum, if I ask them to come over,
I gotta spend like, 200 quid every visit.
It's like, ridiculously expensive.
She's in the states,
and so we would, she was actually calling through the phone,
so we were just like, be like,
"Okay, Marianne, we're just gonna,
"we're gonna do a take.
"When I call you next, it's the real thing."
And then we'd like, click.
- Yeah.
- And then she would call back.
And it was a really cool way.
I feel like that there was a warm,
a warmness in my heart doing this scene,
because it was like, talking to like,
one of my aunties or something like that.
Like, her,
the voice and the accent were so present
and is present in my family and stuff
that it was really easy for me to just be like,
"Oh yeah, that sounds like my mum.
"Yeah."
I'm not being funny, but it just kinda feels like
there's just so much stuff
and it's like, the universe is trying to tell me
that I'm not meant to have a kid.
Do you know what I mean?
- [Aziz] I love your performance in this
because you really get what this added layer of
Alicia doing this by herself
without a partner
and how much harder it is.
Injecting yourself with a needle,
it's a scary thing.
And to think that, you know, when you do this,
it's something you do twice a day,
or however many times a day
for however many weeks.
It's, you know, it's a lot.
- It's a lot.
It's a lot.
I think there was something really special, as well,
about, you know,
a woman wanting to be a mother, calling her mother
for support,
and there's like, a nice kind of,
that moment there as well.
- [Sharon] All right, all right.
Look.
Let's just take a deep breath
'cause you're giving me anxiety already.
(Alicia laughs)
And the child ain't born yet.
All right?
- The ladies we have as the mothers in this.
We have Angela Bassett and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
I mean, wow.
And it's cool because
you know, in the episode before this,
it's Denise calling her mom, calling Angela
on the phone.
Calling Catherine, Denise's mom's character name.
But it's Angela Bassett.
And you know,
she's calling her for support.
And then in this episode, you call your mom for support.
And the whole thing is about,
you know, her wanting to be a mom.
And
yeah, I just really liked how all that worked out
and how there both ended up being phone calls.
And yeah, we lucked out.
- [Sharon] You ready?
- Yeah, I just gotta get my belly out.
One second.
Okay.
- [Sharon] Mm-hmm.
- Okay, I'm ready.
- [Sharon] All right, good.
One.
- Yeah.
Oh my god.
- [Sharon] Two.
- Two.
- [Sharon] Three.
- Oh my God.
- [Sharon] Come on.
- What? It's done.
I did it.
It's not even that bad.
(alicia laughs)
- Can't say enough about Naomi
and how much you brought to this story.
It's, you know, to do a scene like this,
and
you know,
you feel
sad for her.
You feel scared for her.
And you laugh and everything.
You get the full range from this.
And it's a scene where there's no one else on camera,
so, I'm very lucky that I got to work with you on this,
and I'm glad we made this together.