Natasha Rothwell Talks Comedy, ‘The White Lotus,’ And Finding Joy

Courtesy By Malik Peay ·Updated March 31, 2025 < /> Actress, writer, director, and showwoman (Wonka, Wish) Natasha Rothwell is an expert at orchestrating scenes that possess golden moments of improvised comedy and lived-in characters we are all fond of. Her versatility as a former theater teacher and performer with highly-skilled comedic timing and relatability has earned the actor a bounty of opportunities. Most recently, Rothwell embodies the wellness resort practitioner of Belinda in the latest, third season of The White Lotus; she happens to be the only character that reprises her role throughout the entire series.

“Mike White being able to show how we navigate Blackness is very specific,” Rothwell urges over Zoom. “He gave me the opportunity to populate this world with more color, and Belinda carries that weight, almost defiantly being herself and having to deal with oppressive whiteness.”The 44-year-old’s extensive onscreen career has included the hit HBO show Insecure and her self-produced 2024 Hulu series, How To Die Alone.



In each series, she plays characters that >Kelli Prenny in Issa Rae’s dramedy. In The White Lotus, Belinda seeks more autonomy in her professional life and travels to Thailand in hopes of training to become a businesswoman of her own wellness center. She discovers love along the way — similarly to Melissa in How To Die Alone, whosrc="https://www.

essence.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/dom-hetrakul-natasha-rothwell_1.jpg" alt=" Natasha Rothwell Talks Comedy, ‘The White Lotus,’ And Finding Joy" width="400" height="266" />Dom Hetrakul and Natasha Rothwell in season three of ‘The White Lotus.

’ Rothwell experiences the intersection of humanity and comedy in every aspect of life because she lives it, and that fuels her character performances.”Nuance in characters, especially characters that are Black, it’s a joy to play because it allows us to feel fully seen and known and be complicated,” Rothwell explains to me. “We have these moments of great catharsis and devastation in the same breath and that is life.

We need to create roles and opportunities for Black actors to play roles that show diversity of existence.” When returning to Mike White’s The White Lotus, based this time in the Four Seasons’s Koh Samui, Rothwell spent a total of five months in Thailand. There, she bonded with the cast of the show through many outings and group dinners and ultimately, got inspired by the Thai culture that surrounded her.

“I learned when I was in Thailand that the country was never colonized and has never been to war and is often referred to [as] the land of smiles,” Rothwell continues. “To be in a country that has never been colonized. It really is an interesting juxtaposition when returning to America, where we’re constantly healing from our historical trauma, and there is a lightness and a freedom there that I think is beautiful to experience as a Black person.

”Once she got back to Los Angeles, she was set to promote her new Hulu series. The show was a longtime-in-the-making for Rothwell who grew her career by doing the stand-up circuit in New York City and Japan in the 2010s and wrote for SNL in 2014. Despite the series’ honest depiction of a middle-aged Black woman choosing to take charge of her new outlook on life, How To Die Alone was canceled in 2025 which shocked many fans and even Rothwell herself.

“In some of the darkest times, some of the most beautiful art is created,” Rothwell says, grinning widely with cheerful positivity. “Being existential and spiritual, artists are vessels for these very moments and being able to connect to hope and joy and optimism. I’m more focused than ever to continue to create through Big Hattie Productions and continue to tell stories.

”The woman who is known for wearing many hats, Rothwell caught up with ESSENCE to discuss Belinda’s major contributions to The White Lotus series, her biggest comedy inspirations, and learning about the spiritual nature of her time in Thailand.ESSENCE: How did it feel returning to The White Lotus’s third season? Do you feel there is a sort of new, fresh air breathed into the new season as its production and story scaled from the very first season during COVID-19?Natasha Rothwell: This season is being scaled up tremendously. I feel the size of the cast is much larger than season one and just the scope.

Season one, shot in Hawaii, felt like shooting in a bubble because it was 2020 COVID-19 pre-vaccination nation. This time, I had the freedom to explore the location, both as Belinda and Natasha, which was just extraordinary. It was really beautiful there.

I’d never been before and I was discovering Thailand for the first time. It was really a beautiful sort of synchronicity in the whole experience.ESSENCE: As one of the few Black characters in The White Lotus who provide so much natural moments of humor.

What Black comedy characters did you see yourself most in growing up who really inspired you to become a comic? NR: Nell Carter was an amazing actress, singer, and show woman who was in the TV show, Gimme A Break. I remember watching it as a kid, she played a housekeeper on the show to a white family, but she ran the house and she had so much main character energy. She was the high-status character that really imprinted on me that it doesn’t matter the size of the role or what that character is doing in relationship to another character.

You can elevate it by bringing that energy. She was just so inspiring to me growing up and so was Moms Mabley, I used to listen to her vinyls and Whoopi Goldberg. I loved being able to see strong Black women in comedy and also see them do drama, and it really sparked a love for that versatility of performance in me.

ESSENCE: What do you love most about Mike White’s on-set scripted comedy versus improvised performance?NR: Firstly, just to speak to Mike White’s writing, he’s incredible. As a writer myself, it’s such a joy to be able to see someone at the top of their game at what they do. I often refer to his words on the page as notes on a score.

By themselves, you don’t necessarily hear the music, but when you watch it all together, it’s like this beautiful symphony. His mind works in ways that I could only dream. I think for me to be able to collaborate with someone like that and to work with him is just a dream.

I’m a classically trained actor. I did drama before I did comedy, but I’ve always done comedy, and I love comedy. It’s my first love.

I wanted to break out of that, you know, being pigeonholed in Hollywood can be difficult for a lot of comedic actors who have the capability to do both and with the first season of White Lotus, he really gave me that platform to show the diversity of my abilities.ESSENCE: What about your character, Belinda, do you think Mike White really wanted to capture in terms of being the epicenter of this season and connecting The White Lotus series’ story to past seasons?NR: It is a very exclusive club for those that get to reprise with Mike. He generally doesn’t repeat himself because he likes working with new people.

I understand that too, as a producer and a director myself. I think Belinda, in season one, it became very clear to me that she kind of was the heart and soul of the show and represented the audience. In a lot of these environments, not everyone gets to move in circles like The White Lotus in terms of the guest population.

To play someone who was ten toes down, viewing the world, and having the same human reactions that the audience would have — it’s such a joy to play a character that people root for. I felt the same playing Kelli [in Insecure], a character that someone roots for. I like being able to highlight what it’s like to move in these spaces as a Black woman and really be that stark contrast of the moral center.

ESSENCE: How do you believe Blackness is navigated through this series in terms of you being in a white luxurious space?NR: Being a Black person in a predominantly white space is a very common Black experience. Mike is able to show that side well and is not always credited. It is such a specific experience that so many Black folks face.

You know how many viewers have come up to me saying: Girl! When Belinda made that, I know what that meant, I know what she said with her eye when she looked away. Those subtleties of code-switching when she talks to her son, Zion, she can code-switch and that was all in script. Mike collaborated with me on the dialogue.

I pitched lines, and he did the work to make Belinda so specific and real. Employees at hotels who are Black will come up to me and relate to my experience, and it’s such an honor to be able to reflect that on screen.ESSENCE: What about filming in Thailand do you think provided the perfect landscape for Belinda to evolve into this sort of more liberated woman?NR: Thailand is an incredible backdrop.

The country is untethered to a traumatic past, and it invites exploration. We see Belinda at a place in her life where she’s entertaining curiosity and she is learning something new vocationally. She is saying yes to life in a really beautiful way.

When we see Belinda with her son, it’s clear that she was a young mother and she has developed this best friendship with her son. It reminded me of when, with both my parents, we became friends as I grew older. They relate to each other in a new way and ride for each other and celebrate each other.

ESSENCE: When you found out Belinda was returning and would have this key info to catalyze the conflict and climax in the third season, what was your first reaction?NR: I was blown away by the scripts. Mike is so deliberate in his pacing. The slow burn is a lost art especially in weekly TV drops.

I feel like when I was reading it, I could feel my pulse slowly quickening and getting faster and faster, I could totally feel the growing tension. Seeing Belinda be a part of that catalyst was so exciting. Mike does a lot with very little.

He is capable of being a restrained writer and a restrained director because he could have been super heavy-handed right out the gate. He paces it in a way that quickens your heart. As a viewer, I was screaming and making all sorts of noises.

My dogs were very concerned, but like this is The White Lotus!ESSENCE: You tackle loneliness as Belinda and Melissa in a way, both characters are trying to figure out their life goals while finding joy and independence and love in it all. Why are these themes inspiring to you as a performer?NR: They just are so human. We are all trying to balance peace and our struggles and joy and holding it all at the same time.

Characters show the full range and complexity of what it means to be human. Particularly with Black actors, we aren’t allowed to show our capacity to hold it all and do it all. The more we create roles and opportunities for Black actors to play roles that show that diversity of existence only helps the culture grow and heal.

ESSENCE: What ways are you maintaining hope and pushing to tell the stories you want to continue telling?NR: There is a defiance and resistance in that creation and that pursuit to make art. We’re not allowing the world and circumstances to deny us the catharsis of creating art. It is a radical act of defiance to make art in the face of what is going on in the world right now.

It’s relentless. I’ve taken to my work as a way to heal and ground myself during these times. ESSENCE: Your works speak to friendship, love, inner-joy, comedy, how do you channel the outside world into your work or do you strip it all away? NR: It is inevitable to have the world outside show up in your work.

I use my work to explain what is going on in the world so it’s almost a reaction to what is going on. I try to synthesize it through my lens and my POV, and I use the art that I create and write and do to help me process what is going on and really try to understand the human condition. I’m endlessly fascinated about why we do the things we do.

Like, why do people like Trump exist? What is going on in his brain? It is as scary as it is fascinating to me. Being able to explore, the world through the lens of art is such a gift. Art raises more questions than answers which is equally as powerful.

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