Natasha Rothwell Looking for a friend for the end of the world.
A beloved and ardent presence on social networks, the writer-actor-producer-showrunner has reached a professional summit this year with a triumphant return to “The White Lotus” by HBO. She resumes her role as Belinda Lindsey, a masseuse trying to pass the promises of season 1 broken from the laminated heiress of Jennifer Coolidge. But in real life, she admits Sterling K. Brown that she did research on the vaults of the Doomsday Underground, given the state of global policy.
This is the perfect subject for Brown, a triple winner of Emmy for projects like “The People C. OJ Simpson: American crime story “and” This is us “. Team with the creator Dan Fogelman on Hit in Hulu “Paradise” streaming, Brown plays a secret service agent living in a bunker the size of a city under a mountain in Colorado after a disaster on Earth. He investigates the murder of the American president and tried to find signs of his wife who disappeared above the ground.
Survival is a common thread between the pair, because they have sailed in a company full of iniquities and unstable work opportunities on the screen and behind the camera. There is however a lot of joy to have, because the two unpack their first meeting on the seminal comedy of Issa Rae “Insecure”. They also established healthy borders, because Rothwell notes that Brown’s call for mature women can sometimes lead to friction – even between his own mother and father.
Sterling K. Brown: You are so wise and refined. I was (shocked) by the way you fell into your wild character on “insecure” when we met for the first time. Have you started on this show as a writer?
Natasha Rothwell: Yes. I was called in the office one day, and I thought I was in trouble to do too much jokes on the cocks. I remember sending SMS (Issa Rae), “I think I just fucked.” But they told me that they wanted me to play my character Kelli, and I melted in tears.
But you – you are so charismatic and easy to look at. You have almost broken my parents’ wedding. (My mother) loved “army wives”.
Brown: Give me the story.
Rothwell: I thought: “If (sterling) comes here and ruins 47 years of marriage, I will be upset.”
Brown: I am tall with a certain set. Older black women and I have something. But let’s talk about “The White Lotus”. It’s white; We are black. Everything is fine.
Rothwell: I was in the HBO family because of “unsecured”, but it was 2020 – a summit of pre -vaccination. They were just like: “Who is stupid enough to leave their house at the moment?” I had a meeting with Mike White, and I was a fan of his “Chuck & Buck” and “Freaks and Geeks”.
But I mean “paradise”. Are you also afraid for the fate of humanity as me? If you look at my Google research history, you might see a bunker or two business.
Peggy Sirota for variety
Brown: My wife and I have a bunker in our house. I think that many modern houses in the middle of the century have some because they were built just after the Second World War. We sealed it so that the children do not play there. It can contain about 30 people.
Rothwell: You have my number, right?
Brown: I got you.
Rothwell: It’s wild to see how your show flirts with what’s going on now. How close it seems to be close to an event in terms of extinction which is a consequence of humanity.
Brown: Dan Fogelman created it, as he did “it’s us”. He told me that he wrote something with my voice in mind and said, “Take a look.” If I answered it, great; Otherwise, no matter. I wrote to him saying: “Amen.” He thought he said “Amen” because blacks simply say to random “Amen”. He asked what it meant and I said, “I’m in stupidity.”
Rothwell: Did he let go of this did it drop you or have your eyes on the page?
Brown: It is a fogelman thing, and he explained to me (his process) on a podcast that we do for “this is us”: he always writes the first, then he shows it to the studio. Either they like it or they don’t. His feeling is “I don’t want notes. This is the thing I have designed. Do you like it or don’t like it? If you don’t do it, then I can continue.”
Rothwell: “Paradise” is so different from “This is us”. To express this kind of art by the same man, were you somehow caught off guard by this? Or did you know he had the capacity?
Brown: I knew he had the capacity for anything; He can note his ass. He did “crazy, stupid, love.”, “Life itself” – guy is everywhere. He, like me, is impatient to have the opportunity to show the diversity of what he can do.
Rothwell: I sent sms with Mr. James Marsden this morning. I asked him questions about his experience with you, or even for something harmless who has the impression that it speaks volumes about your character. He told me a little anecdote on how you have passed the number 1 on the call sheet several times because for you, these are not the figures but the work. And so I’m just going to reflect this to you. I think that for me, during the longest, I thought it meant something.
After season 1 of “The White Lotus” wrapped, I removed Mike White aside and I became emotional. I went to school for acting like you – we are content with multitudes – but my point of entry into the industry was the writing of comedy for “Saturday Night Live”. It was so difficult to bring the industry to see me all. And they can be really rooted in “She is funny and the big black lady. We will put it This corner, and It is The box in which it is. So that Mike gives me Belinda, it is as if he opened a cage of which I felt the edges.
Brown: I do. I consider this actor thing as a kind of controlled schizophrenia, in that there are so many people in me, and each character gives me the opportunity to leave an appearance of myself.
Peggy Sirota for variety
Rothwell: I think when I write. The best quote is “writing is horrible, but it’s wonderful to have written.” The process can be painful – it looks like a kind of exorcism, so that I can put pen on paper and allow the aspects of my personality to bleed in all the characters. It is also such an exercise in control, because you must be selected and not only be indulgent and do everything that concerns you – it must be the subtext of what you explore.
Brown: Is there joy to play, because you wear so many hats? And be there so far everyone?
Rothwell: I was in office for (my Hulu series) “how to die alone” when I went to Thailand. I felt like: “I don’t have to worry about anything. Something is not going well with catering? I don’t care.” For season 3 of “lotus”, I protect Belinda; I keep it safe.
Brown: We are blessed. How do you work? Because we all have friends who are in this company and not also blessed at the moment. There was a contraction. How does your community reflect this contraction to you?
Rothwell: The contraction is not only observation, it is felt. “How to die alone” had only one season. I see my friends who are caterers, costumes, makeup artists. I want to make sure they will survive this great contraction. I have just returned from the TED conference in Vancouver, and it is terrifying that we are confronted as an artists to protect our work and to ensure that AI does not only generate talent versions that have been organized over the years and years of study and learning.
Brown: I think we are made up of strong things. I also remember that industry is only 100 years old. When I started, there was one thing called the pilot season. There was a lot of network drama. There was a lot of serialization. There were 22 to 24 episodes. Now we make six or eight. And so many things have left Los Angeles.
Rothwell: There was a game shooting near us in Thailand.
Brown: I was working just in Australia and there were seven other productions living in my hotel.
Rothwell: There is a little “Molly, you in danger, girl” on this subject.
Peggy Sirota for variety
Brown: Speaking of Belinda and the last “white lotus”, she is in a moral enigma because she is (avoids) a man whom she knows by another name which was not good for his wife. You finally end up approaching him, and he strikes you with an indecent proposal. What would Natasha do in the situation of Belinda? Take the money and run?
Rothwell: I think Belinda has seen an opportunity to get something that she fundamentally believed that she deserved. It is a moral center for the show. I’m afraid for her because I think karma is real and money is blood money.
This scenario was my field.
Brown: Was it really?
Rothwell: It was my pitch. Listen, that’s why I like Mike White. Originally, it was the son of Belinda, Zion, who led the show. I told Mike that I really wanted to see Belinda having an agency right now. Can it resume negotiations in one way or another? What is an authentic way for her to show that she pushes her tokens with her son? Being able to show this tour, she sees that she has power over a white man – the kind of man whose back she has been rubbing her for a long time.
Brown: Breaks badly?
Rothwell: I don’t know she breaks, but I think she feels that there is an opportunity here. I also come from a place of great empathy. I remember when I was able for the first time not to think of money 24/7. I used to carry a check in my wallet when I was broken. I wrote it for the amount of my student loans just to say: “One day I will be able to (pay this).”
Brown: Has money Belinda also reprimanded her on the idea of ​​embarking on partnership with Pornchai (played by Dom Hetrakul)?
Rothwell: It pisses me off. People are just like, “Oh, you just left Pornchai on the side of the road.” She fucked the guy one night. She had a one -night stand. She owed him anything. Belinda had the opportunity to betray herself again, but no. The circumstances have changed.
For you, your performance contains so much vulnerability and altruism in a few moments. How do you find that, when I think so often, the really human default value is fear and “I have to save myself”?
Brown: My character is someone who has been without his best friend and partner for three years. He is incomplete. And he raises two children by himself, knowing that it was not how it was supposed to be. When he is presented to the idea that his family could be reunited –
Rothwell: He stopped when he was in this shower with your Sarah Shahi co-star. I really need to let you know … (Rothwell shows her leg suggestively))
Brown: Peloton. I am 49 years old, and the fact that whoever wants to see the boot of 49 years, it makes me happy.
Production: Bauie + Rad; Production design: Francisco Vargas
