Lena Waithe wants to make Mary Tyler Moore biopic

3 April 2018

Lena Waithe wants to make a Mary Tyler Moore biopic.

Lena Waithe

The 33-year-old actress and screenwriter made her big screen debut in Steven Spielberg's 'Ready Player One', and Waithe has revealed her dream is to helm a film about the American actress.

She told The Hollywood Reporter: "I may get an idea like, 'Oh, I want to do this, I want to do this thing.' It's, like, there's so many things that I want to do.

"For example, and hopefully no one takes this idea from me, but I want to do a biopic about Mary Tyler Moore. That is what I want to do.

"I don't think people are expecting that from a black lesbian from the south side of Chicago. But, I read her autobiography more times than I can count.

"Because I was obsessed with 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'. I was, like, who is this woman? Who is this person that everybody is wanting to be, that everybody was so happy when she came onscreen? Who was this woman who went from being Dick Van Dyke's wife [on 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'] to the first woman to wear pants on primetime television?

"The first real single girl that wasn't focused on finding a man on primetime TV. She was a feminist in every sense of the word, but she was also a functioning alcoholic.

"She was also extremely private. She had MTM [Enterprises]. MTM produced 'St. Elsewhere', 'Lou Grant' and all these other amazing shows. I feel like, I want to tell her story."

Moore became a cultural icon and served as an inspiration for many younger actresses, professional women, and feminists.

She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and she also suffered from alcoholism, which she wrote about in her first of two memoirs.

She died from cardiopulmonary arrest due to pneumonia at the age of 80 on January 2017.

And Waithe said her dream project is the only thing on her radar and wants to find a "dope actress" to play the American actress.

She said: "I really want to do it. I don't really know how to do it. I really want to do that and find a dope actress to come in and play her and figure it out.

"That's the thing that's on my radar that I want to figure out. But I'm still a queer black girl and want to tell a James Baldwin [story], too.

"But that's who I am, that's what kind of artist I am. And I think the reason that people sometimes tend to be so fascinated about me is they're always surprised by the things that come out of my mouth. I'm going to keep surprising people."