Insecurewill come to an end with its upcoming fifth and final season — but Issa Rae says she’s been preparing to say goodbye since season 3. Rae won Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in Insecure at the 2021 NAACP Image Awards on Saturday, and opened up to ET’s Nischelle Turner about how she’s “taking it all in.”
“I’ve been wrapping my head around this since candidly, season 3,” she admitted of Insecure’s end. “But I’m so grateful to be able to play this character, who is obviously a version of me, and in the same way that I want this character to grow, I want to be able to grow too. So I think that’s what comes with it — I’ve played her for a long time, and I have so much more that I want to do.”
“But being on set everyday, I’m definitely taking it all in on a different level now, just in terms of, ‘Wow, I love this family. This is my family.’ And we’ve done so much and these people are incredible, and I feel so blessed to work with them,” she continued. “And I know I’ll look back on this time very, very fondly, as I do now.”
Season 4 of Insecure ended in a big bombshell. After Issa (Rae) rekindled her romance with Lawrence (Jay Ellis) and put Nathan (Kendrick Sampson) in the friend zone, it was revealed that Condola (Christina Elmore) was pregnant with Lawrence’s baby — and she’s planning to keep it.
Lucky for fans, Rae confirmed to ET that there will be plenty of time to wrap up that storyline and others. “We’re getting more than eight episodes!” she said.
Rae was nominated for four awards at Saturday’s NAACP Image Awards, which celebrates and honors people of color across television, music, literature and film. The actress — who also recently signed a new five-year overall deal with WarnerMedia — is clearly just getting started, though she recently told Tracee Ellis Ross in an interview for Paper magazine that she needs to get used to the idea that she’ll “be here for a while.”
“I just don’t want to take anything for granted,” Rae told reporters in the NAACP Awards press room on Saturday, explaining that she’s seen people in Hollywood “have their time and they’re gone.”
“That’s always been a source of anxiety in terms of, ‘I should take on this project or take on this opportunity because I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, I might not get more opportunities.’ And after a while, I was just like, ‘I need to stop that. I need to stop acting like that, and take my time,'” she said.
“Even before I broke into the industry, I was still trying to make it, but it was very carefully crafted and intentional,” she explained. “I need to get back to that.”
