Yvonne Orji’s HBO special Momma, I Made It! proves she can be both a standup comic and leading lady

The A.V. Club

"After four seasons of playing Molly Carter on Insecure, Yvonne Orji’s career is in a precarious position," says Ashley Ray-Harris. "Orji is incredibly good at playing Molly, the show’s type-A straight man to Issa Rae’s more silly and comical Issa Dee. The line between Molly and Orji is so thin, she even jokes that some of her family members simply call her 'Molly.' The problem is that Orji’s work on Insecure doesn’t always showcase her comedic roots and leading woman starpower. While Momma, I Made It! presents a more thorough picture of Yvonne Orji as a person and actress, showcasing her many talents, it also suffers from a long runtime and repetition. Orji is not new to stand-up comedy. She worked her way up through the New York City comedy scene by creating a distinct brand of humor based on her immigrant experiences, religion, and family. Orji successfully updates this material given her newfound success: 'Don’t let those HBO checks fool you,' she warns. She’s still the same Yvonne, running the Howard Theatre with the same intimacy as the small clubs where she got her start. It only takes a little crowd work before the audience is on her side, quoting her tags before she can even get to the punchline."

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• Yvonne Orji has a polished and hugely charismatic stage presence in Momma, I Made It!: "She creates characters in her jokes, and while she often includes herself as one of the characters in a kind of narrator position, part of Orji’s skill is in drawing out many different versions of herself. They play in harmony with each other, layered on top of one another," says Kathryn VanArendonk. "She’s the Nigerian woman bargaining with her student loan company; she’s the woman with a master’s degree shaking her head in dismay at her friends playing a party game; she’s a penitent daughter, a frustrated woman out on a date, an actress on a popular HBO comedy. It’s compelling to watch Orji perform that skill so masterfully, and the special relies on a kind of truth-telling about who Orji is and where she comes from — even including documentary footage of herself in Nigeria. But it’s most meaningful and effective when Orji embodies it."
• Orji on showing her standup side and providing escape for 60 minutes: "I feel like being rediscovered a new because this is what I was doing before Insecure, and now just the world can see a different side of me," she says. "I'm excited, I'm confident because it's the thing that helped me get the thing that people know me for. I understand the people are angry (right now) and rightfully so. My hope is that if they need 60 minutes of levity or healing through humor, they the special can be that thing to get their mind off, for a minute, all the devastation that is happening in our world, and in our country. People are hurting, and we hope the special can bring some healing in the form of humor."
• Orji understands if black viewers don't immediately tune in because of the George Floyd protests: “If people are like, ‘We don’t have time for this, this is not the weekend,’ I completely get it,” she said, in reference to the ongoing police brutality protests. “I’m with everyone in this fight that we’re in to be seen as human beings."