The development deal that led to “Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens” was announced several years ago. Did the show change during that time?

The pilot changed a lot but there was always this one thread: Nora is where a lot of us find ourselves in our 20s. What’s next? Do you find success and suddenly it fixes everything? No, life is an open-ended question. That gave it room to grow into something that we didn’t imagine at that time. Also, when I first walked into that room I had never acted. I had just gotten cast in “Neighbors [2]” and I was on “Girl Code” but I was never in a movie. It was a gamble on their part.

Have you been secretly training as an actor on the side?

I wish the answer was yes, because I should. Something about my career in the past couple years that is very exciting but also that scares the [expletive] out of me is how fast it seems to have gone with the acting. I remember a period where it was always a question in directors’ minds: “I have not seen her in anything. Why would I hire her?” I have no idea how it’s quite ended up at this point.

Part of being an M.C. is carrying yourself with a certain amount of bravado. Was that a kind of acting?

In the beginning of my music career I was playing shows alone all over the country, venues where no one knew who I was and you’re just heckled to the 15th degree. I had to deal with, literally, tomatoes being thrown. Where do you even get tomatoes? What’s open at midnight that has tomatoes? Out of that you develop a tough skin. You’re not scared to go out there. That helped a lot for sure.