An Emotional Interview About ‘How to Die Alone’

One conversation with Natasha Rothwell accomplishes what a decade of therapy couldn’t.

The self-doubt, loneliness, shame, and an inability to see what is deserved, from others and least of all from myself, that defined so much of adulthood, as the years ticked up into the twenties (then into the thirties…then…), were suddenly clarified. Justified. Dignified.

Imagine, then, what an entire TV series from Rothwell can do. And, too, what it might have done for her.

Rothwell is finally getting what she deserves. She wants that for you, too—though the pressure of maybe having a hand in that is, she tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, “f—ing terrifying.”

How to Die Alone, the series that Rothwell created, writes, and stars in, premieres Friday on Hulu. It’s a flag planted on a summit that she’s spent decades climbing towards, confirming her place among Hollywood’s most talented creatives, most versatile actresses, and most visible Black women.

Scaling that mountain has been hard work.

Ian Watson/Hulu

Rothwell, 43, got her start in New York City after college teaching theater and performing improv with the Groundlings. In 2014, she was hired as a writer at Saturday Night Live, an experience that she’s talked about with pride and candor, the latter particularly when it came to how it felt to be a Black woman in a room that could otherwise turn you snowblind.

If that was her big break, her most gratifying one came when she moved to Los Angeles and began working on HBO’s Insecure. She was hired as a writer, but her delivery in the room of the magnetic, gregarious spark plug Kelli was so hilarious and effortless that she got cast in the part. The nuanced arc she gave the character echoed in her turn on the first season of The White Lotus as Belinda, a hotel worker anxious to allow herself to have ambition. She scored an Emmy nomination for her performance, and will be the returning character who ties the seasons together when the series returns for Season 3.

Before that, however, comes How to Die Alone, a series that, finally, allows Rothwell to be what she deserves—a leading lady—and say what she must: No one was going to gift her this position; she was going to have to make it happen for herself. And making something happen for yourself? To crib from her own words: That’s f—ing terrifying.

How to Die Alone is loosely based on Rothwell’s emotional journey. She plays Melissa, who goes by Mel, a 35-year-old airport worker who is finding it increasingly hard, if not impossible, to smile and pretend it doesn’t bother her that a personal storm cloud seems to stalk her entire life, while she peers out through the rain to see everyone else basking in the sun. Why shouldn’t she be allowed some sunshine, too?

Around her friends and co-workers, including gay BFF TK (Conrad Ricamora), she feels comfortable enough to be herself. She’s a charming, engaging person who delights everyone she meets, but the circumstances of her own life depress her. It’s her birthday, and when Rory tries to hype her up to dance, the best she can muster is what they call “sad twerking.” It’s hilarious. And yet…yes, sad.

“Here’s how I see me,” Mel says. “I’m broke. My family thinks I’m a lost cause. My love life is a joke. And the punchline is: I work at an airport, and I’m afraid to fly.”

Her ex-boyfriend, the only man to ever truly, she says “see” her, sent a poorly timed Save the Date for his upcoming destination wedding in Hawaii. All of her friends abandon her birthday plans. Dejected, she decides to treat herself to buying the expensive cabinet she’s been eyeing at an Ikea-like store and splurge on the gourmet crab ragoons from the takeout shop—the real stuff, not the imitation crab.

Things for Mel, if you can believe it, only get worse.

The cabinet she assembled all by herself falls on her, knocking her unconscious and forcing her to choke on the fancy crab. She dies for three full minutes. When she comes to in the hospital, the nurse is aghast to learn that Mel’s emergency contact is…herself. Worse, she can’t find anyone to escort her home.

Eventually, Mel finds her way to a dive bar, where she mourns the state of her life—and how she can’t muster the courage to do the work to change it. The episode leads up to the premiere’s defining monologue, one that I haven’t stopped thinking about since I first watched it:

“Everyday, I take people to where they’re going, but I have no f—ing idea where I’m going. And even if I did, I couldn’t afford it. I’m still paying off the Lane Bryant bra they cut off my body to drag my fat a– back into a world where nobody sees me. And I pretend to be OK with it, but the truth is: I want to be seen. I want to be loved. You know what I’m saying? I want someone to love me, even though I can’t. So now what?”

The series follows Mel on her journey to answer that question. Over a candid conversation, Rothwell explains how she recognized her own rut and did the work to dig herself out of it. With How to Die Alone now out, we chat about combating loneliness, how much better we all would be if we didn’t have to pretend, and the life-changing power of daring to put on a bikini.

As her Insecure character Kelli would say, “You know what that is? Growth.”

HBO

On my way here, I was thinking of what a strange experience it might be for someone to spend an entire day talking with strangers about their history of loneliness and being lonely. What has that been like to be in that space all day long?

I see my therapist on Tuesday. We’re gonna unpack some s–t. It’s pretty heartening how many people connect to that loneliness, and I think, therein, they become less alone. So it’s a very interesting sort of, like, snake eating its own tail situation.

Now that you’ve made the show and you’re getting to talk to people who have seen episodes of it, does it feel redemptive in any way? With this show, you’ve gotten to script an arc that a person hopes they can go on: going from a place of loneliness that, as you’ve said, so many people have felt, and give them something to aspire to. Because this character is actively working to better herself.

I think for me, it’s about having the opportunity to create a character whose learning process looks a little more real. There’s no deus ex machina that solves anything. [The show] opens the protagonist up to the world, and she dares to be seen. When you do that, it can highlight your flaws. So she’s committed to the process. I hope people see the show and understand that it’s not prescriptive in terms of how their journey should look, but it’s actually an invitation to share the fact that we’re on the f—ing journey together.

Mario Perez/HBO

Mel’s feeling of loneliness is so relatable, but she’s also a very dynamic, vivacious person. She’s driving that cart while “Ruff Ryders Anthem” blasts on way to Lizzo. She’s a very energetic, alive person. Can you talk about that experience of life, of feeling like you’re in a bad place, but still having other aspects of your humanity that are vibrant and attractive.

I’m a recovering people pleaser, a recovering perfectionist, and, with that, there’s often this unspoken mandate to show up happy and not spoil a mood or ruin a room. But if we were walking around being more authentic and vulnerable, we could show up in ways where we’re seeing all the ugly. The lights are on at the bar at 3 am, and you see all of it. I think Mel, her vivaciousness and the way she carries herself, is due to, by and large, [to the fact that] she loves her job. That’s one place where she’s forced to be seen.

How do you take that persona of someone that loves to engage—and is good at it—in the real world, when the real risk is being rejected? It’s a challenge to the viewers to not necessarily, again, look for some sort of magic ending. It’s to just talk. Let’s all talk about our journey, and be real about it.

Sometimes we can trap ourselves in our safe spaces.

Yep! Mhmm.

I laughed so much at the scene where she’s sad twerking with her friend. It’s hilarious, and she’s able to do it because she’s with one of the few friends that she keeps in her inner circle, who she feels safe with. Why do you think we can be so afraid of having the great parts of ourselves break out of those bubbles?

I think it’s that when we change, it inherently changes our dynamic with our friends and our family. It’s an invitation for them to be the wind at our back and not a parachute we run with. Mel allowed herself to be seen by Rory, but is so closed off in so many ways to other opportunities and other people, because there’s a lack of trust that, when you do open up, someone will have the strength enough to carry your vulnerability. What we will see from Mel over the course of this season and future seasons is her realizing that, when it comes to the pain of vulnerability, the juice is worth the squeeze. And we’re going to be seeing her squeezed a lot.

Have you ever sad twerked in your own life?

Oh my God, yeah! I’ve done like, sad everything. The worst is sad eating, because you’re crying and you have to stop crying to chew. So it’s literally a very staccato sound. You hear [wails, followed by silence. Then another wail followed by silence].

Raymond Liu/HBO

I love the speech near the end of Episode 1, where she talks about wanting to feel seen and feel loved, which is hard, because how can you feel loved when you don’t even love yourself? I love that speech, especially coming from Natasha Rothwell, because you, I think it’s fair to say, represent a lot of people who feel invisible in life. But you’re someone who’s overcome it. People look at you and wonder what it must be like to get to a place where you’re an Emmy nominee, you’re returning to The White Lotus, you have your own show. To be in a place where you are being seen. What does it feel like for you to be that for those people?

It’s fucking terrifying. Truly, this is the most vulnerable piece of art I’ve put out into the world. And that speech at the end of 101, I don’t know how much acting I was doing in it. For me, it’s very hard to admit how hard it is to let yourself be loved, and how hard it is to love ourselves. Then to say it out loud and have people consume it? But what’s greater than that fear is the confidence in knowing that people will connect to it and feel less lonely.

They 100 percent will.

So I hope that when people see the rawness of Mel’s journey on the show and the comedy that comes from her going balls to the wall as she’s trying to figure out how to be a human Roomba and clean up her life, and hit wall after wall after wall—I hope that fosters a community where we can all face each other’s loneliness by just being with each other, seeing each other, connecting.

The last part of that speech, where Mel says she can’t even love herself: Are you at a place in your life now where you can say safely that you are at a space where you can love yourself and see everything good that is happening around you?

It’s a process. I am learning to love myself. I say it as a gerund, because I think it’s an ongoing process. You don’t learn and be done. You can fall deeper in love with yourself. You can love yourself in new and different ways. You can love yourself through helping other people. So I’ve diversified how I’ve come to love myself. But it’s not easy walking through the world of Brown Woman, and having institutions built to convince me otherwise of my worthiness. So to be able to create a project that challenges that perception is important for other people, as it was for me to write it.

Ian Watson/Hulu

It must have felt freeing, in a way.

It was very cathartic to put it on paper and to hear it, because I think a lot of times we can disabuse those notions by saying it out loud. There’s a lot unspoken, and when you don’t speak it, then you can’t realize how ridiculous it is. So it was a real transformative moment to be able to put words to those feelings that I’ve had and continue to have. My victory is being able to not give up. I want people to not give up.

When you look back at adult life are there stages that you can think of where you’ve had major breakthroughs in feeling seen, loving yourself, and allowing yourself to be vulnerable?

There’s one in particular: I wore a bikini in Greece. I was the 12 year old at the community pool with a t-shirt on because I didn’t want anyone to see my body. I didn’t even want to see my body. So to be in a different country gave me kind of like, you know, a hall pass, in terms of just no one knows me here. I remember being in the water and just weeping because I gave myself this gift of, “You don’t have to hide anymore. You can just be you.” And since then, I got a pool, and I wear my bikinis,

And you can now afford a pool.

Exactly, right? But I think that sounds so like, I don’t know, inconsequential. But it was a massive, massive moment for me. My life has been peppered with these moments of just like, “Oh s–t. This is one subtle way that I was hurting myself that I didn’t even realize, just to be in the water like every f—ing everybody else.”

I think you’ll find that for a lot of people, that’s not inconsequential. Not at all.

Oh good. Thank you so much.