Natasha Rothwell thriving thanks to ‘Insecure’
Confidence creator gained from series fuels her next steps
About five years ago, before “Insecure” secured its place as one of HBO’S most acclaimed comedies, series co-creator and star Issa Rae approached staff writer Natasha Rothwell.
Rae and Prentice Penny, the series’ showrunner, called Rothwell into Rae’s office to tell her she was best suited to play Kelli Prenny, the perennial we-don’t-deserve-her supportive friend who brings her unforgettable sense of humor to any interaction of “Insecure’s” posse of friends. Up to that point, Rothwell had unofficially brought life to the character in the writers’ room and during readings of scripts — and performing as if she wasn’t auditioning turned out to be the perfect audition.
“It was so unexpected,” Rothwell, now 41, says. “I was giving the kind of tears where it’s the ugly cry that’s just for yourself. I felt so seen as a whole creator.”
In the time since, Rothwell’s scene-stealing performance has made Kelli a fan-favorite GIF queen — her line about “growth” from a season two episode is likely circulating in hundreds of text threads at this moment. Now, as “Insecure” nears its end, Rothwell has added another hyphen to her title, as she made her debut as a television director with the Nov. 28 episode.
As Kelli might say, Rothwell is thriving.
She recently signed an overall deal with ABC Signature to develop new television projects through her imprint, Big Hattie Productions. This summer, she earned praise in HBO’S buzzy satire “The White Lotus” for her poignant performance as Belinda, the overworked and courteous spa manager at a luxury Hawaiian resort who dreams of opening her own business. And she’ll soon appear in the sequel to “Sonic the Hedgehog”; the musical fantasy “Wonka,” a prequel to Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory;” and “We Were There, Too,” a John Hughes-inspired comingof-age story she co-wrote with Gloria Calderon Kellett about “the Brown kids, the LGBTQ kids, the Black kids, the real outsiders.”
“I think a lot of people are like, ‘overnight success,’ but I’ve been at it for a while,” she says. “I just never knew that this was in the cards. I knew that if I approached my craft with integrity and intention and (did) my best to honor the gift that God’s given me, that good things would happen, I just didn’t know ‘good’ would be ‘great’ and ‘great’ would be ‘out of this world.’ ”
Rothwell was born in Wichita, Kansas, but grew up on Air Force bases from New Mexico to Turkey. Her dad was in the service, so her family became accustomed to a life of change. From an early age, she figured out humor was a dependable ice breaker when meeting new classmates.
“Humor was such an easy way for me to put myself out there,” she says. “And it gave me an opportunity to hone my craft and be like, ‘What is this audience like?’ It was very formative. But it definitely made me a tough sort of nut to crack, because it’s hard to be vulnerable and pursue deep relationships when you think you’re going to leave, and you are anticipating heartbreak.”
It’s not lost on Rothwell that she’s carried that impermanence into her career, particularly as she processes her most pivotal transition to date.
“I feel like every show is like a military base,” she says. “Leaving ‘Insecure’ is not unfamiliar; I’m used to leaving places and people that I love a lot and know how to take care of those friendships, even if I’m not there.”
When “Saturday Night Live” was actively searching for a Black woman to join the cast in 2014, Rothwell auditioned. Sasheer Zamata won the role, but Rothwell made enough of an impression to be offered a spot in the writers room. And though she’s careful not to diminish the experience entirely, Rothwell says her short time on the series negatively influenced how she carried herself.
“I didn’t want folks to think I got in to satisfy a requirement,” Rothwell recalls. “I wanted to show that I belonged. I wanted to be at the table at ‘SNL’ and I wanted them to think, ‘… She’s funny. I like what she has to say. And I see her and, oh, that joke is great.’ That’s a lot to carry. And I think that’s also an expression of privilege for white writers: They don’t know what it’s like to walk into a room and feel like the audition is not over. I didn’t feel seen, always. Putting my hand up was me wanting to know if my voice could be heard.”
“I remember saying,
‘Girl, you don’t have to raise your hand like that. Why do you keep raising your hand? Just say it,’ ” says Penny, emphasizing that Rothwell was the first writer hired for “Insecure.” “And she’s like, ‘Well, because at my last show, I wasn’t allowed to speak. I had to kind of ask, “Can I speak?” ’ That broke our hearts in the room to hear that. The idea that anybody would try to … squash her talent or try to keep her brilliance under a lampshade — like, can you imagine?”
Rothwell eventually found her confidence at “Insecure.” And it’s fueled her ever since. “The confidence that I had coming into ‘White Lotus’ ran laps around what I started ‘Insecure’ with,” she says. “Me six years ago would have just said yes to the part, no questions asked. But me now said, ‘I need to talk to the director because as a person of color, in a servile position with a homogenous group, I want to make sure we do this right.’ ... There’s no way I would have had that competence had it not been for ‘Insecure.’ ”
As Rothwell took stock of her life and career during quarantine, she began to consider what she wanted the next five years to look like. “I wanted to direct
TV. I wanted to direct a movie. I want to be in that space legitimately and be a player in that space,” she says. “And so when it came time to direct during the season, I had a fire that I don’t think I would have had prior to the pandemic. It was an activator in a very real way.”
The episode, Rothwell says, is about choices:
“It’s sort of the come-tojesus moment with Issa, Lawrence and Nathan (Kendrick Sampson), and understanding that you have to stand behind the decisions you make, and also make decisions that are about what you want, and not what you think other people want. … It typifies your 30s: ‘What do I think? What do I feel like? What do I want? What do you want?’ ”
Now, Rothwell is learning how to answer those questions. And you know what that is? Growth.