voting is in progress 74th Annual Primetime Emmy Awardsand this week we’re talking to some of the acting nominees.
Natasha Rothwell was getting paid in beer on the Upright Citizens Brigade.
During the three-minute skit, she masqueraded as an agitated therapist or dog watcher in the Brigade’s darkened underground theater in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. It was the gateway to raucous, off-the-foot performances, and offered plenty of drinks for early comedians seeking recognition and Hollywood stardom.
Now, ten years later, instead of booze, she played a supporting role as an overworked and underrated spa manager in the HBO series The White Lotus, which earned her an Emmy nomination.
Roswell’s first Emmy for acting is a pivotal moment for her, starting on the improv stage in New York and then transitioning into directing and acting roles at Netflix and HBO. It validates the hard work she’s done to help give voice to people of color who are more vulnerable.
In “The White Lotus,” 41-year-old Rothwell plays Belinda. Belinda takes care of an endless parade of eligible guests at her renowned resort wellness center, including Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), who has traveled to Hawaii to scatter her mother’s ashes. For Tanya, Belinda is Miracle Her Worker and offers to fund her Belinda Own Wellness her business. However, by the time Belinda draws up her business plan, Tanya’s interest in her wanes, and in her final episode, she hushes Belinda a large sum of cash.
“These characters aren’t glaringly problematic,” she said. It’s not about Karen wearing a MAGA hat going through and throwing privileges.”
“It’s a nuance of privilege,” she added, adding, “It really pissed people off.”
Rothwell said the quiet storm brewing in Belinda reflects the experiences of service industry professionals who feel helpless in their position. (Roswell herself photographed the family at JCPenney and worked at the McDonald’s drive-thru window before landing a big gig.) It credits writer-director Mike White for infusing it with depth.
“She wasn’t a prop in other people’s stories. She had a drive and a desire,” said Rothwell. “He really highlighted the real experience of black people in customer service, who can’t say what he’s thinking when he thinks. We don’t have that luxury.”
At UCB, Rothwell put his heart into every character he played. Her manager, Edna Cowan, immediately recognized it. During her first meeting at her Cowan apartment, Rothwell expressed her desire to enter the entertainment industry and she began a partnership of over ten years.
“I feel like I have a match in one hand and a dry stick in the other,” Rothwell recalled telling Cowan. “And you just need someone to help start the fire.”
74th Annual Emmy Awards Details
The 2022 edition of the Emmy Awards, which celebrate excellence in television, will take place September 12 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
Cowan was one of the first people Roswell called after being nominated for an Emmy. Around 9:30 a.m., Rothwell peeled off her bedsheets and staggered for her cell phone as usual. She created a calendar reminder on her phone to congratulate Coolidge, who was so favorable to her nomination, but she didn’t expect to receive one of her own.
I thought she was still dreaming.
“I had to hold my breath,” Roswell said. “It was pretty special.”
As Roswell wiped the tears from her eyes, the two shrieked in excitement, frightening Roswell’s salt and pepper goldendoodle, Lloyd Dobler. Rothwell recalled an analogy Cowan made in her first conversation.
“We lit, we lit,” Rothwell recalled saying.
Cowan said in a recent video interview:
Born in Wichita, Kansas, Rothwell grew up as an Air Force kid living on bases around the world, from Florida to Turkey. (She went to two elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools.) She appreciated being exposed to different cultures, but not all of them were good memories. First time in Fort Florida, at her high school in Walton Beach.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” she recalled thinking. “literally.”
Such experiences motivated her to better understand human behavior. She joined an improvisational theater troupe in the same Florida high school that freed her from obsessions and intrusive thoughts, and she studied theater at the University of Maryland. Her dream was to become a Broadway actor, but she was discouraged when after her graduation she continued to act mostly in comedy roles.
On the advice of one of her former professors, she decided to embrace her talent for comedy.
“I am so grateful to have stopped trying to resist my natural inclinations and applied my dramatic skill set to comedy.
After Saturday Night Live was criticized for not having a black female cast member in 2013, UCB’s artistic director informed Rothwell of a special audition. “SNL” hired her as a writer in 2014, but she quit after one season because she felt she was underrated.
But then things took a turn for the better. In 2016, she starred in her short-lived but critically acclaimed Netflix comedy her series The Characters, and later that year, she starred in HBO’s Insecure, a protective and very loyal star. A good friend, Kelly, started running her full series as her preny. (She’s also the director-producer and writer of “Insecure,” which was nominated for the 2020 Emmy Award for Best Comedy and directed an episode of her directorial debut, the final season.)
As she helped develop an “anxious” personality, Roswell asked herself. Being in the world and never questioning your own worth or worth? Kelly was the character she needed to see herself.
“When I was walking through the airport in Philadelphia, when I was visiting family, they would say, ‘Yes, Kelly, I’ve met you!’ All I had was this love for her,” she said.
Although her title wasn’t official, she still wore a writer’s hat during the production of “White Lotus.” She recalled pulling White to her side at one point and she said, “You know, we don’t talk like we talk.”
White was open to incorporating the idea into the show, she said. , capturing one of the character’s few moments of relief.
Given Roswell’s reputation in comedy, people are often surprised when she takes on more serious roles. has tried not to be confined to one genre, she said. And she’s still motivated by her early love for drama.
“The comedy that I gravitate toward writing, producing, direct, consuming has both a lightness and a gravitas,” she said. “They need each other.”