Yassir Lester

American comedian, TV writer and actor Yassir Lester broke out in early 2017 when he began starring on the Fox comedy "Making History" (Fox, 2017-). Raised primarily in Marietta, Georgia, Lester always knew he wanted to be a comedian. He began writing jokes at age 17 and did his first professional stand-up comedy gig when he was 19. Lester worked as a professional comedian for a number of years in his 20s, and traveled all across the country to perform shows. In the meantime, he longed to be working as a TV writer, and would scribble away at spec scripts whenever he had a free moment. His big break came in the early 2010s when he joined the writing staff of the Adult Swim animated series "Black Dynamite" (Adult Swim, 2011-15). His tenure on that show gave Lester hands-on experience on the day-to-day grind of writing TV comedy. In addition to his burgeoning TV writing and stand-up career, by the early 2010s Lester had also begun appearing as a panel host and judge on television shows geared toward young Millennials. Most notably, in 2014 Lester worked as a judge on the MTV cooking show "Snack Off" (MTV, 2014). While still doing a number of standup shows each week, Lester continued pounding out spec television scripts in hopes of landing another coveted staff writing job. As luck would have it, that opportunity came in 2016 when Lester was hired by creator Lena Dunham to work as a staff writer on "Girls" (HBO, 2012-17). Lester worked as a staff writer on the fifth season of the show, and also worked as a story editor on the NBC sitcom "The Carmichael Show" (NBC, 2015-). In early 2017 Lester landed a huge break when he was cast on the sitcom "Making History" - his first series regular role as a TV actor. The show debuted on the Fox network in early 2017.