Natasha Rothwell says How To Die Alone is a love letter to her past self

How To Die Alone’s beauty lies in how it captures the desire to truly live. In the show, a near-fatal experience pushes Melissa (Natasha Rothwell) outside of her comfort zone, making her realize that it’s time to stop being afraid and start pursuing her dreams. Rothwell, who also co-created the dramedy, has done exactly that, too: overcome her fears, in this case by crafting a worthy leading role for herself. 

The actor, best known for Insecure and The White Lotus, delivers a captivating performance in the Hulu series, which premieres September 13. Rothwell tells The A.V. Club that she connected deeply with Mel, who rediscovers her potential and decides to simply go for it, and was able to inject her feelings and experiences into the character, calling the show a love letter to “an unhealed version” of herself.   

The A.V. Club spoke to Rothwell about being her own boss, the tricky tone of How To Die Alone, magical realism, and, yes, her upcoming return to The White Lotus.     

The A.V. Club: How long have you wanted to create your own TV show? 

Natasha Rothwell: I’ve always wanted to do it, to be honest, but the real opportunity presented itself seven years ago. I got a development deal at HBO when I was still on Insecure. It’s crazy to be presented with a dream and trying to figure out what it is you want to say and do. I’m really grateful for Amy Gravitt [executive vice president of HBO and Max comedy programming] for recognizing that I had the potential to do it and giving me the opportunity to create something. Because of her, I was just able to really take big swings and put it all out there. With How To Die Alone, it’s been a long process to bring it to life but I’ve enjoyed every single minute of it as an executive producer, a co-showrunner, writing on the show, and being in it. It’s just been the dream of a lifetime to have that much creative control and be able to protect the heart of the story. 

AVC: What was the appeal of the airport being the show’s primary setting? 

NR: I knew I wanted to explore loneliness and I also knew that I wanted the opportunity to have a range of diverse characters. There’s a bit of magical realism in the show so I get to play more than one character. But the goal was to have a really rich environment, and the airport just made sense. It’s also a cruel dichotomy to have her be an airport employee and be afraid to fly. I thought the metaphor about taking flight and realizing the proximity to realizing our own dreams is a lot closer than we think was important. I wanted a character who is so close to her potential, and the only thing standing in between her and realizing this is fear. That’s a relatable feeling. I’ve definitely experienced it, so it felt like a ripe area for storytelling.

AVC: Was working on How To Die Alone a way to overcome one of your fears? 

NR: Oh, absolutely. Doing new things is fucking scary, but I think that it is also cathartic and worthy. The process of creating my own show is putting myself out there in every way. And there’s so much of me on the page in every single character, not just Mel. It was healing to explore who I am and the human condition in this way. It was hard, but it’s something I feel super lucky to have gotten the chance to do. I honestly think of Mel as the unhealed version of myself in my twenties. So this is a love letter to her and hopefully it’ll be able to help others who see themselves in the same position with her journey and process of growth. It’s not like you get a graduation certificate from therapy because it’s a long process [to overcome]. You have good days, you have bad days, but the important thing is just to keep going. I wanted Mel to be a sort of hero for those of us who are just going to keep trying. 

AVC: How did your experience writing for Insecure and Saturday Night Live help shape your work here? 

NR: I feel like every project that I’ve had has prepared me for this moment. But I benefited by having a front-row seat to Issa Rae’s journey and being able to see things that worked or didn’t work, things that I wanted to replicate, and things that worked for her but wouldn’t work for me. Finding out what I wanted to do with this opportunity in terms of populating the writers’ room and department heads on set was [great]. I’m really grateful for having such a diverse history in this industry to be able to pull from.

AVC: Talk about the process of establishing the dramedy’s tone because there’s a bit of everything: workplace comedy, romance, drama, coming-of-age. 

NR: Well, my true north was authenticity. We are nuanced, complicated people, and I wanted the character to experience and express the full range of emotion because that’s life. To try to categorize it is so Hollywood. I’ve been a victim of that because before it was just like, “She’s Kelly from Insecure, she can’t be serious.” And then I played Belinda in The White Lotus and everyone’s like, “She can be serious.” We can do it all; we have the capacity. It was important to me to honor the fullness and complexity of the human experience, especially allowing someone who looks like me to have those emotions and feelings on-screen unapologetically.

AVC: There are a bunch of unexpectedly hard-hitting scenes, including a fight you have with Conrad Ricamora’s character or when Mel says she doesn’t want a full-length mirror because she doesn’t want to see her full self. What was it like to navigate the more emotional moments as a writer and performer?  

NR: Yeah, it was hard because there’s so much that you want to say, and I didn’t want to let this opportunity slip away. And I say that very pointedly because there may not be a season two. I hope we get four seasons of the show. That’s the dream, but for this moment, it was about trying not to overcrowd the conversation. The moment you reference is a good catch because it was straight out of my life. I had an apartment and didn’t have any full-length mirrors. A friend mentioned it, and I didn’t realize until then that I just didn’t want to see that much of myself. It may seem like a throwaway line but it’s important. The show is populated with those moments where you hopefully see the depth of what she’s processing. 

Our writers’ room is incredible and elevates everything. At times, I had to fight for those moments to stay in the show because, again, Hollywood does try to put you in a box. They want you to be one thing, and it was important for me to see Mel go through the highs and lows and realize they exist together. You can cry one afternoon and by the end of the night, you’ve taken edibles and [are] cracking up at Futurama. That’s life.  

AVC: Is that where you got that bit in the premiere, when Mel wants to spend her birthday getting high and watching The Office? 

NR: [Laughs] Yeah, I do enjoy edibles, and I’ve been a fan of The Office forever. I also thought it was a cute detail that Mel and Rory have this routine. It’s their Friday-night date night.  

AVC: How To Die Alone also has some magical realism when Mel imagines herself as the people she sees. Why did you choose that storytelling format?

NR: It was such a treat to be able to explore Mel’s inner life through magical realism. I think we can all relate to the idea of psychological projection where it’s like you see someone and you put your life on them. It was important for me to have that as a tool on the show to really display that we’re voyeuristic, we’re watching the world pass us by, and we are often living through other people and seeing them go and do things that we might want to do. In showing that through magic realism, it activates the character, and we can see where she comes from. It was so much fun to play multiple characters in that way and perform not just Mel’s storyline. 

AVC: How did you craft Mel’s relationship with both her ex, Alex, and coworker, Terrance? And are you a fan of rom-coms? 

NR: To me, the rom-com part is a Trojan Horse to get people to have deeper conversations. I love rom-coms, but I wanted to write this show because some of them negatively affected my expectation of what life was supposed to be like with the “I need to have a man in my life to actually start living to be happy and to be fully realized.” This story has love interests, and both Jocko Sims and Keilyn Durell Jones are incredible actors. But it’s about her falling in love with herself. She’s the princess and she’s saving herself, so I loved getting the chance to play with that angle. 

AVC: I know you mentioned that four seasons is the dream, so do you have ideas for the show’s future already? 

NR: Yeah, I definitely have ideas. I work with my co-showrunner, Vera Santamaria. We [thought of] four seasons of the show before we even got the green light for season one because I didn’t want to go into this and not have a sense of where it was headed. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to tell the story. It’s exciting to have this rich world and the characters because there’s so much to pull from.

AVC: What are some genres you want to work on next? 

NR: I love all things rom-coms so I’d love to have one out there that I’m starring in. Ditto with thrillers. The thing is my interest in what I consume on my own time versus what I want to see myself in can differ because I just have not seen someone look like me as a version of Jason Bourne, you know? What about Jacinda Bourne? Let’s see what’s going on there and not make it a comedy. Give me some lasers and guns. I think it’d be cool to explore a period piece. Give me a corset. I just want to continue to play characters that subvert expectations, whatever genre that is.

AVC: You’re returning to The White Lotus in the upcoming third season. What was that like to go back after season one? 

NR: I love working with Mike White. He’s just an amazing person and a phenomenal collaborator. Someone once told me that returning to a character is like putting on a wet bathing suit. It’s awkward at first and you’re like, “Wait a second,” but then it starts to feel good and comfortable anyway. It was nice to put Belinda back on again. I’m so, so excited for audiences to see her.