Natasha Rothwell Says She’s a ‘Swiss Army Knife’ Performer. ‘How to Die Alone’ Proves It

Natasha Rothwell has no fear of flying. With stamps on her passport from Turkey to Tokyo, the actress is completely at ease with the wheels up. She gets to the airport well ahead of takeoff (“being early is on time,” she says). On board, she loves a window seat and daydreams while gazing at the clouds. But she knows not all Black passengers feel as comfortable, due to persistent racial bias that’s a holdover from the Jim Crow era. So, wherever she lands, she goes out of her way to make fellow Black travelers feel welcome. While visiting an Irish moor in 2015, Rothwell bumped into a Black family and embraced them before even introducing herself. She did it again earlier this year, while filming The White Lotus Season Three in Thailand. A Black couple walked into the hotel lobby, and Rothwell draped her arms around them.  

“We both looked at each other, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, hey!’ I gave [the woman] a hug,” Rothwell, 43, tells Rolling Stone. “She’s like, ‘Do I know you?’ I was like, ‘No!’ There’s such a joy I get when I do see Black travel.”

In her new Hulu/Onyx Collective series How to Die Alone (now streaming), which Rothwell created, she aims to both channel and shatter those racial stigmas. Rothwell stars as Mel, a flight-fearing JFK Airport employee who by day drives a cart delivering passengers to their gates, and by night struggles with loneliness. A near-death experience — a disastrous solo attempt at a two-person furniture assembly task — prompts Mel to take charge of her life, enrolling in an airport managerial program and booking her first-ever flight, to Hawaii. The show merges the sharp comedy Rothwell is known for with a more serious tone — and even a musical number — as its self-deprecating protagonist takes life-altering professional and personal leaps. It’s a project that allows Rothwell to flaunt her skills as what she calls a “Swiss Army knife of a performer.” With a voice role in the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (due out in December) and plans to adapt the viral TikTok “Who TF Did I Marry?” for television, Rothwell is finally stepping into the spotlight after years as a supporting player.

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“I feel really grateful that now the roles and opportunities that are presenting themselves to me are varied and are dynamic, and they can trust me to nail the joke, but they can also trust me to bring on the tears,” Rothwell says. “It’s a joy to be able to have the full range of emotion when I’m performing.”

Born in Wichita, Kansas, Rothwell moved around often, wherever her father’s Air Force job took them — attending two elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools. At her second high school, she established an interest in comedy, joining the improv troupe. She went on to study theater at the University of Maryland with aspirations to make it to Broadway. After college, she taught theater in the Bronx for four years and performed improv at the Manhattan sketch comedy club Upright Citizens Brigade. But much like How to Die Alone’s Mel, Rothwell felt the tension between living a safe life or betting on herself.

“I graduated with a theater degree during a recession, and I just didn’t know how I was going to make it happen,” Rothwell says. “I just knew that I had this passion and calling to be a storyteller.”

In 2014, not long after Saturday Night Live had faced a barrage of criticism for not having a Black female cast member, the Lorne Michaels-helmed show came knocking. Although Rothwell didn’t land the cast role — Sasheer Zamata got that spot — she was invited to join the writers room. She wrote Taraji P. Henson’s monologue, which she calls “a huge win for me personally,” and an experience that helped her feel seen and respected.

“She clocked the room and recognized where I fell in the circle with the writers,” Rothwell says. “I was able to get a co-written sketch with Chris Rock that Sasheer starred in and a Weekend Update piece for Sasheer, and then pitching jokes and collaborating. It was a great environment in terms of that. It hits different when you walk into a space and you recognize that the place that you’re working has a history of not necessarily seeing or creating opportunities for people who look like you.”

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Still, despite support from Black cast members like Zamata, Leslie Jones, Kenan Thompson, and Cecily Strong, she felt that her talent was undervalued, and recalls having to raise her hand to be heard. After a single season, she opted to leave.

In 2016, she was tapped by showrunner Issa Rae to play Issa’s fiercely loyal bestie Kelli on Insecure. Next, she pivoted to drama in the first season of The White Lotus, playing the mild-mannered and overworked spa manager Belinda. The part earned her an Emmy nomination — her first — and a return to the series in the upcoming season. It also showed casting directors she’s capable of more than just cracking jokes. 

“It was after the first season of White Lotus that I realized other people had been pigeonholing me by genre,” she says. “So, I was so grateful that that was sort of a wake-up call to alert the industry at large that I can do it all, and I want to do it all.”

How to Die Alone is proof positive of that concept. Rothwell’s own experiences inform the texture of the show, including microaggressions from white travelers. She recalls her delight — and initial confusion — when she started flying first class while working on Insecure and asked an airport employee where to swipe her credit card after piling her plate in the lounge. “She looked at me and she’s like, ‘No, sweetie, it’s all free,’ and I was like, ‘What? That’s how folks have been living?’” Rothwell says. But on the flip side, she’s been brushed aside by fellow passengers who couldn’t fathom that she was one of them.

“Having a white person walk past me and stand in front of me, and me having to tell them that ‘I’m in line,’ and them reminding me, ‘Oh, it’s for first,’” Rothwell says. “OK, so you don’t see a lot of us in this space, maybe we need to diversify that.”

Rothwell intentionally made Mel afraid to fly, leaning into that cultural fear of international travel. (Back in 2017, the NAACP actually warned Black passengers about flying with American Airlines following previous accounts of discrimination by the airline; in June, the organization considered reinstating the travel advisory after several Black men filed a lawsuit accusing American of racial discrimination.) Flying can also be cost-prohibitive, she notes, which often discourages Black people to book trips in the first place.

“So, to be able to have a character who has aspirations to take flight is a signal to those people watching the show that may look like me, that this is for us, too,” Rothwell says. “We’re allowed to travel. We’re allowed to have a passport with stamps in it. It may not be as easy to get there, but don’t let yourself be the reason why you’re not going.”

Throughout the earlier part of her life, Rothwell worked service jobs from McDonald’s to Blockbuster Video to JCPenney. She’s drawn to characters who exist on the margins, she says, citing the no-nonsense housekeeper played by Nell Carter in Gimme a Break! and Hattie McDaniel’s Mammy in Gone With the Wind. She even named her production company Big Hattie after the Oscar-winning actress.

“The stories of the people that are put on the sidelines are often more interesting, more complex, more rich, more diverse than many of the stories that have historically been told center frame,” Rothwell says.

That’s one of the main reasons she leapt at the chance to develop Tik Toker Reesa Teesa’s epic tale about the unraveling of a relationship with a man who turned out to be a pathological liar and control freak.

“It’s centering a marginalized voice, uplifting an incredible storyteller, and using vulnerability as the engine,” Rothwell says. “Her series was one of the most radical acts of vulnerability I’d ever seen. What I also am excited about is not just to do a recitation of what we all saw in 50 episodes, eight hours, and 450 million impressions. For me, I’m also interested in the woman and her life and how nuanced and beautiful it is as well.”

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In the meantime, the frequent flier will continue bringing joy to fellow travelers — and even airport workers, too. In July, Rothwell’s flight leaving the Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans took off late, leading her to miss her connecting flight back to L.A. While stranded at a Minneapolis airport, she exchanged pleasantries with DJ D-Nice and his family, who also missed their connection, at the airport’s lounge before booking a hotel for the night. 

“Before we realized we missed the flight,” Rothwell says, “we flagged down an accessibility driver, and we’re like, ‘We’re trying to catch this flight.’ She’s like, ‘I got you.’” Rothwell snapped a selfie with the woman before they left. “And I told her, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I play you in a TV show.”