Natasha Rothwell Has a Vision

A visit to actress Natasha Rothwell’s home in central Los Angeles is not unlike a White Lotus experience—in terms of leisure that is, not murder. As I walk up the paved path to her front steps, she opens the door before I can get to the doorbell, enveloping me in a hug. She offers me house slippers so my feet don’t get cold. There’s a bottle of water waiting for me on the coffee table in front of the plush beige couch where we’ll sit for our interview. A fire flickers. Soft jazz plays. All that’s missing is the ceremonial lei.

“Is he annoying you?" Rothwell asks when her dog, Lloyd, a goldendoodle wearing a comically large bowtie nuzzles my knee, then places a turkey leg chew toy on my lap. "I can put him in the other room." It’s one of those seemingly dateless days in the stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Rothwell, who returns this month to HBO’s crazy-shit-goes-down-at-luxury-hotels anthology series The White Lotus for season three, spent the entire holiday season here at home, or as she calls it “my little peace palace” having some me-time. After a crazed schedule all last year, she just wanted to nest. “It’s such a personal accomplishment to have a home,” she says. “And it’s something I never thought I would be able to have, so to enjoy it is really nice.”

For Thanksgiving she ordered the feast from Bludso’s, an L.A. barbeque institution—“way too much for one person,” she says. “I got all of the fixings and then I made homemade focaccia to go with it; popped a bottle of champagne.” Entertainment was an episode of 20/20. “I call them ‘my murder stories’ like an old grandma,” she says, laughing at herself.

Rothwell, who’s wearing a black Adidas track suit, tucks her bare feet under her as she cradles her coffee. (Yes, of course, she offered me one too.) The 44-year-old’s face is as welcoming as she is. She has whatever the opposite of resting bitch face is—resting doll face, maybe? It’s a face that insists you like her, which is part of her power on screen. When Rothwell’s The White Lotus character Belinda gets her hopes dashed by Jennifer Coolidge’s flights of fancy in season one of the series, the camera steadies on Rothwell’s sweet brown eyes welling with disappointment. We feel the betrayal immediately.

Rothwell’s character is one of only a handful that series creator Mike White decided to reprise. In the new season out February 16, Belinda, the beleaguered masseuse from Maui, is now on an exchange program to learn the ins and outs of the far east sister resort’s wellness program. Rothwell had such a “magical experience” on the first season, which aired in 2021, that after it wrapped she wanted to do it again. Rothwell remembers telling White at the time: “I’ll follow you anywhere. You know, I just want to work with you again.” Her wish came true a year later when White phoned her for dinner, and told her he was working on some ideas to bring Belinda back to the show for the third season. “He said, ‘I’m noodling around this idea about Belinda and spirituality. Would that interest you?’” Rothwell recalls. “I was like, “Duh of course. You’re on my vision board. This is a manifested dinner.”

This time around, Belinda comes on the boat, instead of waving dockside with the service class. “I get to arrive,” Rothwell says. “Social climbing, moving on up, all those things.” In part, the season is about her navigating her new position of luxury. “She’s flirting with that line of upstairs-downstairs,” Rothwell adds. “She’s never been the recipient of the hospitality she gives.”

Despite the fact that Rothwell had a leg up on her new castmates as a returning character, she couldn’t help but be starstruck. “I was incredibly nervous for this season; rubbing shoulders with Walton Goggins, Michelle Monaghan, Parker fucking Posey. I remember talking to Parker at the first cast dinner and she was like, ‘We were all nervous to meet you.’ I was so moved by that.” The only downside to spending five months with an A-list cast in Thailand this time around was the temperature. “I am not a cute and dry person. I’m a sweat-er,” Rothwell laughs. And Thailand was “hot as fuck.” She adds: “I loved it, but this was, like, a next level kind of heat. Acting under those conditions is a lot.”

The White Lotus isn’t the only project that’s kept Rothwell busy, but it’s definitely inspired all the busyness. After years of writing (Saturday Night Live), voice acting (Archer, Bob’s Burgers), and playing smaller side characters—most notably Kelli, the boy crazy comic relief of Issa’s friend group on HBO’s Insecure—The White Lotus made Rothwell a known quantity. She popped up on the big screen over Christmas in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Rothwell also created and starred in her own show, How to Die Alone, which came out in September on Hulu. In it, she plays an airport employee who decides to take control of her life after a freak accident. The day before we met, How to Die Alone had won a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Ensemble Cast in a New Scripted Series. The news dropped while she was breaking bread with Jennifer Lawrence, Kerry Washington, and other A-listers at a Hollywood Reporter breakfast honoring Women in Entertainment.

“I am in this room and I'm just thinking someone's going to tap me on my shoulder at any minute and be like, ‘Get out of here,’” she says. At one point during the event, her rep leaned over and informed her of the Independent Spirit win. “I was like, I cannot cry in front of Nicole Kidman!" Rothwell says, though she teared up anyway. “It’s funny because the show is about enoughness in a lot of ways, and I still struggle with it. But that’s all in here,” she says, tapping her head.

Rothwell wasn’t one of those kids who knew what she wanted to do from an early age. She was born in Wichita, Kansas, and grew up as an army brat, the second of four children, bouncing from place to place. Before the age of 14 she had already lived in New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, even Turkey. She describes herself as precocious when she was young. “The other kids would be outside, and I’d be in the kitchen,” she says. “My mom would think I was doing the dishes, but I was ear hustling, trying to hear what the adults were talking about.” Her dad was in the military, her mom worked as a hospital lab tech. Acting just wasn’t on Rothwell’s radar.

At Ithaca College, Rothwell first concentrated on journalism before transferring to the University of Maryland when she was offered a full ride to join their theater department. Even then, she had a hard time letting herself lean fully into comedy, and was frustrated that the parts she kept being offered were comedic ones. “I didn't want to feel like I was just being relegated to the funny sidekick,” Rothwell says. She struggled until a coffee with her professor set her free. “He was like, ‘You can take comedy seriously,’” Rothwell recalls. “That unlocked it for me. I was like, Oh, the commitment is what makes that funny. That's why Robin Williams was so hilarious. After that, it didn’t feel like a pastime.”

Ironically, Rothwell’s recent roles all seem to be doing the reverse: finding comedy in the serious. Her characters are all in the midst of re-examining their lives. Belinda goes to Thailand to reset and find some spark. “I think the universe knew I needed something,” Belinda tells the Thailand wellness staff in the season 3 premiere, before placing an offering before a Hindu altar. How to Die Alone’s Melissa is working towards getting on a plane for the first time in her life, and the show is filled with aphorisms. In one episode, after visiting JFK’s resident runway falconer, Melissa applies the flight wisdom he imparts to her own life, later reciting in the mirror the four steps that make flying possible: “Lift, thrust, weight, drag.” Even on Insecure, Kelli goes through a life transformation: By the end of the series her party-girl phase is over, she’s sober (except for champagne) and on the path to enlightenment (starting a podcast).

This comic lens on existential stuff appeals to Rothwell. “I want to live at the intersection of levity and gravity,” she says. “I want to be able to make people cry and then piss themselves. Basically I want something leaking somewhere.” She credits White and The White Lotus with really giving her the chance to lean into her dramatic side. “It allowed me to put my theater degree to use. You know, I’m classically trained,” she says. “That’s something I’m forever grateful to Mike for."

Rothwell has gone through several of her own personal transformations. “I’ve been in therapy for 20 years,” she tells me. She has a vision board she keeps in her bedroom decorated in quotes and images that inspire her. She takes it out to show me, but makes me promise not to reveal the specifics. First rule of vision boarding? Your visions are yours and yours alone. “I can’t believe I’m showing you this—I must like you,” Rothwell says. Her board is framed by glittering crystal. “Quartz,” she says. “I'm a crystal girly now because I'm in L.A.” An astrology girly too, apparently: “I’m a Libra Sun. Sagittarius rising and Aquarius Moon.” At this point, we realize our bodies have shifted on the couch and we’re angled towards each other, leaning in. The sign of a good, intimate conversation, and also, I point out, very The Drew Barrymore Show-esque. Rothwell laughs. “I’m about to nuzzle your neck or whatever she does!”

One of the habits Rothwell’s learned to kick (mostly): people-pleasing. She calls herself a “people pleaser in recovery.” Rothwell was born in the Midwest, after all. She tells me how from the ages of 15 to 27, she was a vegetarian. But one day in the middle of this span, she went to her friend’s house and “her mother made chicken enchiladas and I just ate them because I didn't have the power to be like, ‘Oh, I’m vegetarian,’” she says with a laugh. “Was just like ‘mmmm’ and ate them. Of course I got a stomachache because I hadn’t eaten chicken in 10 years.”

Finding body neutrality has been another major part of her journey. She’s “not comparing and despairing” now. She’s “really accepting and embracing myself as beautiful.” Growing up, Rothwell was self-conscious about her body. She went to Weight Watchers; wore an oversized T-shirt over her swimsuit. “I don't even have a picture of me without a T-shirt at the local pool because I just didn't want to show my body,” she says. “I’ve had to unlearn the way the world sees plus-sized bodies and plus-sized Black bodies. Even owning the word ‘fat’ and not using it pejoratively. I really had to be really intentional about my words. I think there's a lot of power in that.”

I ask what she thinks about Ozempic and its rise to prominence. “Half of me is like, ‘Yes, do you. Your body, your choice. If you're happy, great,’” she says. “The other half almost feels betrayal. Like, ‘Oh, wait, I was just at the fat girl meeting. I thought we were all accepting shit!’” It’s a nuanced subject, obviously, and Rothwell is quick to point out that she would never judge a woman for making whatever choice she wants for her body. “My secret hope would be that it's coming from a place of doing it for themselves,” she says. “The health and wellness industrial complex is fed by us not being satisfied with ourselves. That's the gasoline that keeps that machine going. It's dissatisfaction, self-hate, and wanting to be someone else's body type. It's not built to make us at peace with where we are.”

Rothwell still has her moments like every other woman on the planet, but she made a deliberate choice to tackle her own body acceptance on How to Die Alone. In the finale, Melissa strips down to her underwear and runs into a freezing Lake Michigan. “I'm in my bra and panties— not even a one piece!— and I jump into a lake on national television,” she says. “I put it out there. Owned it. People on Twitter [X] responded, ‘Girl, I got your legs!’ To me, that was just healing of my little Natasha.”

But even after three successful TV shows, and years on the therapy couch, Rothwell still doesn’t really acknowledge her own fame. She was recently in a development meeting for an upcoming project and an executive mentioned that it was great they already have a celebrity attached to star. “I literally said to her, ‘What celebrity?’” Rothwell says. There’s a moment of silence. “She just looked at me. [Then I realized:] ‘Got it. ME. Cool.’”

Still, for what it’s worth, there have been times she’s felt like she had to go incognito. “Sometimes I'll wear my face mask to Target. I don't want people to know that I'm buying this shea butter and this frozen pasta,” she laughs. For now, she’s happy not to get the Justin Bieber treatment when she’s out and about in the world. “I want to touch people and have my work acknowledged,” Rothwell says. “To me, that has always been the focus and the goal.” Luckily, if her The White Lotus fanbase does explode this season, she can always hide away at home.

Photographer Alex Harper | Stylist Jen Patryn | Hair Stylist LaRae Burress | Makeup Artist Yvettra Grantham | Production Luciana De La Fe | VP of Creative Alexa Wiley | Entertainment Director Neha Prakash | Fashion Director Sara Holzman | Beauty Director Hannah Baxter | Designer Jonelle Afurong