Jay Ellis, better known as Lawrence, from the hit HBO series ‘Insecure’ starring Issa Rae, recently did a candid interview with BET. He shared his experiences filming with the Men of ‘Insecure’ and the one “character flaw” he hates about Lawrence.
Like most guys that go through life issues, Lawrence goes to his friends Chad (Neil Brown, Jr) and Derek (Wade Allain-Marcus) for advice on what became some of the funniest moments of the show. Ellis reveals this to be true in his personal life as well.
“Neil Brown, Jr. is a pro. I met him working on Insecure, but he has become one of my closest friends,” says Ellis. “So, getting to work with him every day is a joy period. I’m super excited anytime he is on the schedule. It makes me happy. And then you add Wade, when the three of us get together we have as much fun off-camera as on camera. I think we’re always trying to surprise each other.”
The dynamic of Chad and Derek’s polar opposite personalities makes the advice that is given to Lawrence that more interesting. Chad is bluntly direct and on a thin line of being misogynistic, having his opinion while Derek is the more responsible and exhausted married man giving his advice on the other side of the fence.
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“So, there is this constant game of listening to the other character and how can I get him to break,” Ellis explains. “It literally just turns into 13 hours of that when we get to work together. As actors we play into each other’s strengths and come together to make a scene funnier and make it hit. And obviously we have great writers and directors who are constantly guiding us and yelling at us to stop laughing.”
There is a moment shared by Ellis to be in season four, where Wade is stressed out and confides to Lawrence about a specific challenge of new fatherhood that is predicted to break twitter.
“Hearing Wade say that line is one of THE funniest things ON THE PLANET,” Ellis says excitedly. “And then he whispers it? It’s brilliant. It’s absolutely brilliant. One day you know it’s gonna happen and you can’t do nothing [sic] about it.”
Aside from the excitement of his character coming into the prime of his life this season, Ellis learned that Lawrence eats fries with mayonnaise and he wasn’t too happy about it.
“I was so pissed that they wrote that for Lawrence!” he exclaimed. “And I’m not joking either. I was like can we do anything but mayonnaise? This is some bullsh*t. Black people don’t do this! Unless they’re from the south. I have some family from the south, I feel like they eat mayonnaise. I don’t mess with it though.”
‘Insecure’ Season 4 premieres on HBO Sunday April 12 at 10 pm ET.
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