Robin Thede

Performance is always something that will be a part of my career.

If you're a white person in the wrong neighborhood, you're an underdog.

My dad worked three jobs and was a teacher. My mother was a teacher's aid, making, like, $3 an hour. My father went on to get his master's and became active in all these minority engineering programs. And my mother started running for public office. All that happened after the kids were adults. But I'm insanely proud of them.

I got a degree in broadcast journalism at Northwestern but was running a sketch-comedy group and then went to Second City. When the writers' strike happened in 2007-2008, I went to work at E! because I had that background.

Too many writers get stuck in the trap of writing what they think is funny and not considering who they are writing it for.

Queen Latifah was the first time I had ever professionally written with another woman of any color.