Name: Natasha Rothwell: Embrace Your Main Character Energy | On the Spot
Uploaded: 2025-02-15T09:36:15.000Z
Duration: 11 min 27 s
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To-infinitive

I'm going to ring this here bell, some questions will pop up, I'll repeat them and we'll see what happens.

Past simple

I cut my teeth in improv, so hopefully that pays off.

I would have to say, for me, I have kind of an insatiable, if not annoying, curiosity about the human condition.

I want to know why I am the way that I am.

But I think when I write, create, direct, produce, I want to do things that people connect to and make them feel less alone.

I remember growing up and the gymnastics, the mental gymnastics I would have to do to project myself on the protagonist.

And the power of representation is exemplified by me being here right now.

Part of the reason why I'm here is because of the show Give Me a Break, clap if you remember.

It starred Nell Carter, and Nell Carter was a plus-size, black, fatty baddie who was unapologetic about taking up space, and she taught me that I too could be a black, fatty baddie and take up space.

And that's an idea I didn't necessarily know I could latch onto because I didn't see main characters that looked like me, and so I never tapped into that main character energy until I saw her.

Ten years ago, I worked for Saturday Night Live, and my very first Saturday there, I went down from the writer's room and I watched the ending credits on the floor at Studio 8H.

And when you're down there, you see the cast on stage clapping, the band is playing, and what you may or may not know is to the left and right of the screen, there are monitors, and we get to see what you guys see at home.

And I saw the credits going, and you see the word writers, and then you see all of the writers' names cycling under the word writers.

And I saw my name, and it was mind-blowing.

I was definitely star-struck in that moment that my name was there and I was there as well, but it was like an aha moment because I had never called myself a writer.

And I don't know when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I told myself that I can't call myself a writer until someone else calls me a writer, and I'd given away that power.

And it was from that moment on, I realized I know I had ambitions to direct and to act on the screen and to be on Broadway and all these things.

I wasn't going to wait to have someone else give me that identity, because just because your paycheck doesn't match your ambition doesn't mean you aren't those things.

A night in or a night out, I'm going to say a night in.

My favorite thing in the world is to be canceled on.

Make a plan with me and text me like 30 minutes before and say, nah, we can't do it.

I'm going to say I'd rather be too cold because there's only so naked I can get in public before it becomes a problem.

Winning the lottery or finding your soulmate.

Because, listen, my soulmate's going to find me, okay.

Caesar salad or chicken parm, both, I'm a Libra, can't choose.

Waiting in line for merch or seeing the opener.

I'm a military brat, so being on time is late, being early is on time, so I'm seeing the opener with my merch.

Time travel to the past or time travel to the future.

This would absolutely mitigate my need for beta blockers.

So I wrote a show about dying alone and that came about because for the better part of my life, I grew up thinking that was the worst thing possible.

And what I came to realize was as I got older and my friends got married and were in partnerships, a lot of them were lonely.

And I realized that I had spent the better part of my life, again, thanks to seeing them and a lot of therapy, that loneliness was actually the thing to be afraid of.

And so the show and my life since having that awakening has been spent finding the antidote to loneliness.

And for me, that is vulnerability and allowing myself to have connections.

I often prioritized and valued romantic love over all other types of love.  It was that golden ring that I was going for.

And what that did, it blinded me to the love that was in my life.

Because I thought, you know, that's not the good stuff.

And I think, for me anyway, bringing romantic love in line with all the other kinds of love that exist within the world and within my life, it opened up my eyes.

And I realized that my life was lousy with love.

I couldn't turn or throw a stone without seeing the vast amount of love in my life.

And I think that also allowed me to see romantic love for what it is.

And I'm a recovering perfectionist, so I love that.

So for me, my self-love practice has to have its roots in grace.

Because it is imperfect, and I'm not going to get it right all the time, but I have to love myself through loving myself.

What's the best thing someone can put on their dating profile?

About a month ago, I had my mind blown pretty massively.

And I know what you're probably thinking.

You're like, oh, man, everybody's suddenly ADHD.

By and large, it's a lot of women, and women of color, because we often go undiagnosed.

And a lot of those women who have gone undiagnosed are posting on TikTok, and I'm watching it, and I already knew that I was a little neuro-spicy.

But I didn't know how much until I started watching these TikToks, and I was identifying post after post after post.

And so I went to three different doctors to get my diagnosis.

And, you know, PSA, you don't need to go to three different doctors.

But I was resisting that diagnosis heavy, heavy.

And I didn't want it to be true for a couple of reasons.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Natasha Rothwell: Embrace Your Main Character Energy | On the Spot

struggle

prioritize

vast

practice