Lena Waithe Has Stories, Taste and the Coolest Blockbuster Memories
The mighty great and multi-talented Lena Waithe has pulled up a chair for Good Hang with Amy Poehler—and the official episode title gets straight to the point: “Lena Waithe Is Always Cool.”
The conversation is exactly the kind of relaxed, oddly specific celebrity visit the podcast does best. Amy and Lena move through early jobs, creative obsessions, theater, television and the cultural discoveries that helped shape the writer, producer and actor long before Hollywood knew what to do with her.
No forced life lesson. No résumé reading disguised as conversation. Just two funny, curious people following the stories wherever they decide to wander.
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Working at Blockbuster Was Apparently Part Job, Part Film School
Among the verified episode topics is Lena’s time working at Blockbuster, including what she remembers as the best part of the job.
For somebody whose career would eventually revolve around creating and producing stories, spending shifts surrounded by movies feels almost too perfectly written. The store was not merely a place to clock in. It was access—to titles, conversations, recommendations and the kind of casual film education that happens when people are constantly asking what they should watch next.
Some filmmakers went to film school. Lena Waithe also had the video wall and a staff discount.
The memory gives the episode its warmest kind of nostalgia: not pretending everything was better before streaming, but remembering when discovering a movie required wandering through aisles and trusting another person’s taste.
Then Prince Entered the Story and Changed the Temperature
Amy and Lena also get into the moment Waithe fell in love with Prince, an artist whose confidence, mystery and complete ownership of his own universe make perfect sense as an influence.
Prince did not merely release songs. He built a visual language, controlled the atmosphere and made personal specificity feel larger than life. Lena’s own work across television, film, theater and Hillman Grad follows a similarly useful principle: the more particular the perspective, the less reason there is to dilute it.
The discussion does not need to become a formal tribute. The pleasure is hearing one creator light up while talking about the artist who made possibility look impossibly stylish.
Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Couples Therapy Complete the Hang
The episode also moves into Lena’s work as a producer on Cats: The Jellicle Ball, the ballroom-culture reimagining that takes Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical somewhere far more alive, communal and fashion-forward than the average alley.
Then comes her television recommendation: everybody should apparently be watching Couples Therapy. It is a perfect Lena Waithe choice—observant, human, intimate and fascinated by what people reveal when they are trying to explain themselves to somebody they love.
Blockbuster, Prince, ballroom Cats and televised relationship therapy. That is not a conventional interview outline. It is, however, a very good hang.
Watch “Lena Waithe Is Always Cool” on Good Hang with Amy Poehler
The full 1-hour, 12-minute episode covers Lena Waithe’s Blockbuster years, her love of Prince, Cats: The Jellicle Ball and why she recommends Couples Therapy.
Source: Good Hang with Amy Poehler / The Ringer.
