Issa Rae needs to schedule downtime into her calendar otherwise, she won’t ever stop working.
The actress became exhausted in 2021 when she had to fit in finishing the final season of “Insecure,” executive producing the first season of “Rap S###,” filming an episode of the AppleTV+ anthology series “Roar,” running her media company HOORAE, and getting married to Louis Diame.
In an interview with TODAY’s digital magazine, Issa revealed that the experience made her actively carve out time for rest in her schedule.
“Last year taught me that the balance needs to be planned in advance for me, because, otherwise, I would just work, work, work, work, work,” she said. “Even after Insecure, like a dummy, I did an episode of ‘Roar.’ Then I flew to France (for the wedding), and I was like, ‘Why did I need to do that? I could have taken that two weeks in between to chill and prepare and do all these things?’ But I chose to do this episode. It was a great experience… but I know myself. I know how frustrated and/or tired I can get in some cases, and I’m not doing my best when I’m like that.”
Issa makes sure her team knows about her time off so they don’t keep tempting her to fill up her calendar with projects.
“Because people will try you,” she explained. “They’ll be like, ‘Oh, this is coming up, are you sure? There’s this much money here, are you sure?'”
The 37-year-old finally took time for herself in January after the “Insecure” finale aired.
She went travelling and “finally got a chance to just chill and think,'” but admitted that not working for all of the month was difficult for her.