Natasha Rothwell on ‘How to Die Alone’ and Her Return to ‘The White Lotus’
Scene-stealer Natasha Rothwell takes off as the creator and star of her own Hulu series, "How to Die Alone."
Natasha Rothwell gained fame on Insecure as Issa Rae’s most quotable friend, Kelli Prenny, CPA and meme machine. Also a writer and producer on the series, responsible for hatching some of those indelible lines, Rothwell earned an Emmy nomination with the show’s 2020 nod for Outstanding Comedy Series. She soon followed that with another Emmy nomination, for her heart-tugging supporting turn as screwed-over spa manager Belinda Lindsey on season one of The White Lotus.
Any performer who can pilfer scenes from White Lotus Emmy winner Jennifer Coolidge is definitely going places. And, for a talent like Rothwell, who earned her stripes in the SNL writer’s room early in her career, it was only a matter of time before she was leading her own show. Her time has come.
Rothwell created, executive produces, and stars in Hulu’s How to Die Alone, from Onyx Collective, the streamer’s label oriented towards stories by creators of color. In the half-hour, single-camera sitcom, she portrays Melissa, “a broke, fat, Black JFK airport employee who’s never been in love and forgotten how to dream.”
Over the course of the first season’s poignantly funny eight episodes, Melissa learns how to live, live, live alongside her gay bestie Rory, played by Conrad Ricamora (Fire Island, Abe Lincoln in Broadway’s Oh, Mary!).
In creating the show and her character Mel, Rothwell knew exactly to whom she would look for inspiration. “Me,” she says, laughing.
“Outside of me,” she continues, “I think we’re in a moment right now in society where self-help and working on yourself and all of that is talked about so often as a before and after picture. Like, if you do this one thing, it’ll fix it. And that’s just not life. It’s about the journey, and it’s about taking risks and making mistakes.”
The journey Rothwell hoped to reflect was her own. “I’ve been in therapy for twenty-plus years, and there’s no graduation at the end of this shit,” she says. “You just gotta keep learning and making mistakes. You gotta keep growing and you gotta keep making mistakes. And it’s about the attempt.”
Mel’s attempts to reach cruising altitude in her work and love life are constantly thwarted, though she experiences some wins among the disappointments. Her comic foibles are threaded through a workplace comedy that makes the most of its JFK airport setting and an eclectic cast, including Sherman’s Showcase star Bashir Salahuddin as Mel’s combative brother Brian, and SNL vet Ellen Cleghorne in delightful guest appearances as Mel’s sweetly shady mom Beverly.
Their turbulent season culminates in a finale episode that daringly dangles a major cliffhanger for Mel. But Rothwell declares she was glad to take that plunge.
“It’s terrifying to put yourself out there in small ways, and this is a really big way,” she admits. “But I knew that you don’t get opportunities like this often to be able to create a show. And especially walking through the world as a Black, plus-size woman, to see a show that centers a story coming from someone like me doesn’t happen often. So I didn’t want to pull any punches.”
The show takes a few shocking turns for a sitcom, just as Rothwell and co-showrunner Vera Santamaria intended. “I wanted it to feel magical and surreal, and be very funny, but very moving,” Rothwell explains. “I wanted it to contain multitudes because we contain multitudes.”
While she hopes audiences come to discover How to Die Alone, Rothwell won’t be resting but plowing ahead with her Big Hattie Productions on developing projects, like the just-announced TV adaptation of viral TikTok series Who TF Did I Marry.
She’s also already filmed her much-anticipated return to The White Lotus, as Belinda steps into season three, set in Thailand and airing sometime in 2025.
Though Rothwell’s Belinda did not appear in season two — which famously climaxed with Coolidge’s character Tanya McQuoid waving a pistol at a yacht full of gays in Sicily — the actress watched agog along with the rest of us.
“I was gagged like everybody else,” Rothwell recalls. “When I saw her wielding that gun, I was like, ‘Yes, yes!’ It was just giving action hero. And when she slipped, it was just like, [gasps].
“So many people think, ‘Oh, did they tell you in advance that that was going to happen? Did you know?’ It’s like, no, I was literally texting friends. I texted [The White Lotus creator] Mike [White] that night: ‘Oh my fuck, Mike, what did you do?'”
One thing White eventually did was ask Rothwell back for season three. Saying yes “was a no-brainer,” she says. “And I’m just really, really excited for audiences to see more of Belinda’s story.” Offering no hints of what that story might be, Rothwell does reveal she shot for months in Thailand, and she apparently hasn’t heard the last from former co-star Coolidge.
“Jen has been so wonderful, with the season three of it, and sent me encouraging text messages of support,” says Rothwell, beaming at the thought. “It’s just nice to feel the love.”
The first four episodes of How to Die Alone debut September 13 on Hulu, with new episodes streaming every Friday. Visit www.hulu.com.
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