Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang"Four Seasons Ambassador" (w/ Natasha Rothwell)
It's an episode years in the making as The White Lotus's Natasha Rothwell joins Matt & Bowen on Las Culturistas! These three have so much to talk about, as they all have history grinding it out in New York comedy back at UCB, The PIT and as members of Story Pirates! It's giving long shared history! Bowen and Natasha connect on experiences as SNL writers turned successful performers, and Natasha talks about playing in one successful ensemble after another and tending to play characters who "carry the torch of empathy". Also, Grease as an Austenian text, playing Mama Rose in high school opposite a very gay Herbie, the challenges that come with developing social boundaries and "the guilt tax" you pay when you choose yourself, meeting and thanking John Waters at the Vanity Fair Oscar party, and accepting awards for the great show How To Die Alone after it was cancelled. There's also obviously a ton of White Lotus talk, including the differences between Belinda in seasons 1 and 3, this season's exploration of adult female friendship, and Lalisa's great performance and overall superstardom. You don't like gay incest? Grow up! And no, stranger in Target, Natasha is not going to tell YOU any spoilers! You just gotta watch, and you should! The White Lotus airs Sunday nights on HBO, but you already knew that shit! We love Natasha, who is one of the all time greats. And this episode? You know what that is? GROWTH.
Look Mayer, Oh, I see you my own look over there is that culture. Yes, goodness loves cult day last Culturas calling a day.
Of days, a day of days, a day that feels right in the heart, the soul, the mind, the body.
You know what I was thinking this morning, I was like, this is someone we've actually wanted on this podcast since since we get starting. And by the way, we should say shout out to anyone who voted for us for Podcasts over the Year, which we won.
For a second time.
Yes, and it's nine years in and I'm just thinking about, like, I know, our guest is here today and someone we've looked up to since, but even before we started the podcast and all these years later, it feels like a wonderful little moment. So thank you all for that, and also just to have our guests in this like star ascending moment.
It's just like it's feeling.
I'm a little emotion, I'm a little emos This is someone who had wonderful Vulture piece on our guest, and it just made me realize what we've known along, which is, oh, this is someone who both is someone in place, people that you just root for.
We just love you so I know, and it is like a decade in the making.
It's seriously and like and so basically we're about to bring our guests in. But just know, like I mean, obviously the White Lotus insecure.
How did I alone? I mean, there's so much to talk about.
But for me, I was literally when we finally met our I finally like really in person met our guest, which feels crazy, like the other night after the Oscars, and I was like, you know, you to me will always be that flight attendant you see me base basement.
If you know, you know on mod night, not even UCB, this is a UCB pitizen, this is a story bar.
Were three three pitizens in the room, in the room, my god, I'll.
Wait, we got a bringer. Let's go. Let's go. Everyone. Welcome to your ears.
Natasha, thank you for having me, making me.
A most it's emost moments.
But that's like so special, you know what I mean, to just have those people that are from way back that you knew were special then pop off like and that happens all the time now if.
I feel that about you too, are you kidding me?
I think game recognized game and like even like on our come up watching the two of you work like it's just you know, you know, but you.
Know that I was going through the whole process of screen testing for SNL then being offered to write, and I remember reaching out to you and being like, what.
Do you think I should do?
Because I just respected you to the fucking mountains and at that point you were already insecure, like yeah, Kelly was already like the one, and I was just like, Na, Tasha had such a unique Everyone has a unique journey, and you had a very unique journey, and I was just like I need to know because at that point, I'm going to say, like you could count I'm like one or two hands the number of writers of color, let's say, not to put it on those those lines, but like it was like a meaningful thing to reach out to you peace.
Yeah, I remember when you did, and I remember saying that like it was hard for me, but like the juice was worth the squeeze, right, because it's just like going through that, you know, iron sharpens iron, you become better at what you do. And it wasn't perfect. And I have notes, yes, yes we all do, but I think ultimately it was the stamp in my passport you know, professionally that I needed to open some doors that I think I would have eventually opened, but maybe take a little longer to do.
So, yeah, totally.
I mean does being back in New York make you reflect on this obviously, right?
Yes?
Yeah, Like it's like like from the pit days to the UCB days to the s and L.
Like on every level, on every level.
Like you know, like in a car where he says, like, you know, things in this mirror are closer than they appear. Like for me, that's like literally being so broke that I was like picking up Metro cards off of the ground at the train stations on my way home to check them the next morning, and so like having calling my mom in fucking South Jersey to order me pizza in Brooklyn from Jersey.
Because I didn't have anything in the bank.
And it's just pizza.
Pizza, a better pizza than a lot of New York pizza. When you're outside of the city, they take their time on the pizza.
That's actually a real culture number four six, when they're outside of the city by the time on the pizza.
That's true.
But no, I'm full of gratitude and even just writing here today so much of my experience in New York was based on where I was my.
Social socioeconomic level.
And I feel like for every different stratosphere there's a different version of the city. The version of the city that I'm getting to know now is it's different than the one that I knew. But I missed the one that that I used to know, you know what I mean.
I missed that kind of like hustle and that grind I was.
I was never more poor than I was when I was grinding in comedy, but I was so.
Happy, Yeah, you know what I mean, Like the early mornings for like a story pirate show like mad An call Time, the like I didn't tech for.
Your mod show at like three am, you know.
And paying for it talk about notes. This again is the old uc.
But no, but I mean, like it's really something like when I remember I had taken like a long time away from New York, probably because of the pandemic obviously, and then I got back and my immediate instinct it was raining a little bit. I was like, I'm still gonna take a WHI and I did have like a I don't know why, I am frightened moment looking around sort of really getting tearful because we did like this is this is really where we grew up.
Oh yeah.
When people ask me, because I'm an Air Force bread and I grew up all over, I was just like, but I became an adult in New York, Like I found out my voice and you know in New York, I like made mistakes in New York.
Like New York truly raised me.
And so even though I didn't live here super long, it's only eight years, but even just driving here, I was just.
Like looking at cars, like I remember crying on that corner.
I remember remember that bagel shop that atm lets you take it out.
You can get a five out.
Yeah, oh wow, tell us about that about dollars? Yeah, found one.
So it's like all of those things and you're just like, oh, I'm so grateful to have had that. And it feels like a collective experience, you know, like no one quite knows what we went through. And the improv industrial complex is like that that like the pipeline from improv to TV, like it's not what it used to be, you know, like they don't have it like we did.
Like there was a time of being in New York or la doing comedy in the way that we did, where it felt like so cool anytime, and it felt kind of frequent, I'll say, is the word, but like it felt like there was a regularity and like, oh, this person got raptured up into the show.
Yes, yes, And now I feel like I feel like.
I'm not like my ears into the ground maybe, but like I don't know, I don't know like of that same sort of like machinery that's happening.
Yeah, I mean I don't either.
But the scuttle butt is that it's maybe not the same as it used to be. And I think that like the the beauty of what was it was, you know, like if you liken you know, UCB to like Catholicism and then to like, you know, I felt like we were all worshiping the god of comedy. And it's just like when you go through that kind of like radicalization, it's just like you see someone else and you're just.
Like zip, you know, I'm about to ritails vegetails, hilarious, I'm about to get a little niche. But like when you were because I remember think because we were pit people, because we weren't embraced by UCB at the very start.
It actually took us a little bit same. Is that the same with you?
You were like because you were one of the queens of the Pit, and we remember thinking of you being like, well, Natasha's here at the pit, putting in the hard yards, and like that means that like we'll get to UCB.
Natasha's on the poster like these are our lines.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I just remember I had come to New York with six years of mainstage experience in DC like Washington in prov Theater and tried to jump the line at UCB of just like I've been doing this for like professionally six years and I've been teaching and then like no, no, no, no, no, take a number. I was like okay, yeah, and then I went to the pit and Ali was just like, oh, like you can teach, like and so I was able to start teaching, and then I auditioned and got on a team and so.
So bluss the pit then for like yeah, they also.
Where they held the showcase for SNL. When I auditioned, it was at the pit. That was famous night, that was the famous that was a big night, and so it was just I think the pit allowed folks to be a little bit more.
Yeah, it's less rigid than totally the Catholics. I remember also feeling like, you know, the the Catholics.
I remember at the time like there was something really performative about that space, like because because you're a performer, you're a real performer. And I remember thinking, I think we identified that as that too, maybe because UCB felt like very it felt you know what I mean, like you had to learn a language that like those guys were speaking, but at the pit it felt like you could.
Maybe it was just like the presentium, the literal stage.
Yeah, it felt like it was welcoming a different kind of performer, and I kind of felt enthusiastic about that opportunity.
No, I love the pit stage and it was so much fun also to meet the folks that were like devoutly pit yes and would never go to UCB. I know it was, And I just felt like an interloper where I'm just like, nah, I gotta go.
It used to be we I'm gonna do this show now, which like that's the best.
Though it's like best and like shout out to the Magnet people like Magnet. The Magnet is still about a wonderful vibe the Baptist.
Listen, we have figured it.
Yeah, we get by the end of this episode, we'll figure out what the Groundlings is. You know, we're not l a people, but we're gonna work figure it out and Second City and all that say. But like I just.
Remember seeing you at the pit doing the flight attendant and I was just like, okay, like this is someone who this She's gonna go the fucking distance, you know what I mean, Like, like I think you are one of those people who we just like modeled ourselves after anytime there was a story pirate story that like there would be linked to every story, every stock story. I feel like, were you in the Emergency Poncho?
It was it was like, sorry, story sketch called the Emergency Poncho about a kid that gets a poncholl put on him at a mean because it starts raining and it became musical, and you were in the tutorial for it, and that was the one one of the ones we all I'm actually dead, we really are. Like see that's like I remember, like the story parts of it all really pushing me forward because I'm like, yes, the community is what's important.
Yeah, And that that remains true.
And I feel like something about you is you're always in an amazing ensemble, and you always put together an amazing ensemble. You just won the Indie Spirit Award for Ensemble in a new series and with our pal Conrad, and you know, even that connection to being this great ensemble. And I see you and obviously Insecure and now famously two seasons of The White Lotus, and you're in that family that's obviously not an accident. It's like you're not like booking purposefully these things, but it seems to follow you.
Yeah, I'm always drawn to the collaborative arts.
I think that's why I never like I have deference for stand but it's never been my bag because I don't want to fail alone.
Do you know what I mean to me?
It's just like, can we get a team together to believe in one thing and even if we lose, it's.
Together so there's still a win.
Yeah.
And I also find that in and again like it does feel like it's chosen me more than I've chosen it. But I feel like of the ensembles that have chosen me, my entry point is always sort of with a character that's kind of carrying sort of like the torch of empathy, and I think that's just innate in me. That's how I moved through the world. And so whether nature nurture, I'm always drawn to parts and characters that bring humanity.
To people who look like me, you know what I mean.
And I don't consider it like an obligation or sort of like a burden to me.
I get excited by that opportunity.
And that's like when I sat down with Mike for White Lotus season one, I had reservations because at that point he hadn't had the scripts written, but I loved him at talking like love him. I'm from Freaks and Geeks, enlightened all the way through, you know, good girl everything. But then he is so good right, but then he hit then my team's just like okay, And I was like, well, how many in the cast are people of color? And it's just like it's you and then there's one other girl, but like mostly it's like you, and so I'm in a servile position and I.
Was like, that didn't like make me want to, you know, say no.
I was just like, is he going to collaborate with me to help sort of like discover this character and we found that empathy, We found that like heart in the heart of who she was. So yeah, for me, characters and empathy are always sort of like the true North.
And then he kind of has the sympathetic sort of instinct with you where it's like he went page by page yeah with Belinda and it's like, okay, like what's the deal here? Like yeah, and you get to be like, oh, I want her to wave hello with this family that's at the resort, Like those moments, that moment really struck out. And then reading this piece and seeing all these interviews that you're doing talk about that specific thing, I'm like, this is this is the importance of like of Belinda's a character, of you as an actor.
And it's important of directors to know who they have and how to utilize them.
Like we have the same hyphenates.
Mike and I were both actors, we're both writers, were both directors, and so as writers we were able to sit down and geek out. And he's so aware that he's not a black woman, right, and so he's just like, well, what are the ways that we can at that authenticity? And I tell him all the time, I was just like I wish more directors took, you know, a page from that book.
Yeah, of being able.
To know I have a deficit, but this character or this actor who's playing this character might be a resource to me.
But I have to humble myself to do that.
And Mike is one of the kindest, most humble, like gentle sweet souls.
That I've ever met.
And so for him to do that with me season one, and I was bucking nobody season one, you know, like I.
Mean, Kelly was I mean, Kelly was a thing.
But also it was just like, well, anyway, maybe I should say I should say I felt like, why was he listening to me?
Yeah, it would be hard to walk into an ensemble cast like that and be like, yep, of.
Course anyone any and so like I felt so like ahead of my skis, but he.
Was so excited.
And then when you know, I was asked back for season three, was like when we're going to zoom, I was like, I got you boom, So we like did that we chopped it up again.
Yeah. One of my favorite things about this season, the characterization of Blinda, is it does feel like there's a little bit more you in there, Like some of my favorite moments are when you're in your place of like attitude is gratitude and then and then a lizard will jump out and it will be a full shut down, Like I feel like that humor and that sort of on guardness. It's yes, it's like it serves as just great comedic relief in any of these given moments, especially interacting with the environment, which is so much of what the show is about. But also it's for me, it speaks to the fact that like, you're dealing with less bullshit now, like you are a version of Belinda now that is like no fuck that I will self preserve. So it means more to me than just those small interactions. And where we find Belinda right now in the season and we've seen the six episodes so far, is a place of true fear and existential terror because she's now being like you know, she's Greg is in the midst and they see each other in a real way.
So I wonder, like, what.
Do you think of that progression and where do you think she's at and going?
I love this question.
So for me, when we see her at the end of season one, right it's like she's devastated, her hopes were dashed.
And then we see her.
Starting something new, doing something that's you know, out of her comfort zone. And I feel like when we do that, it speaks to hope and optimism. So it speaks to some kind of between the time we last saw her and when we meet her she has grieved that loss and is trying again. And when finally and when you meet someone on sort of like the precipice of change and like you know, in entertaining optimism, it's an exciting role to play because she's doing something familiar. Yes it's massage, but it's in a completely different country. She's learning a new technique. She's raising the bar for herself. And when we see her in six, all of the hope that she has is now being threatened by Greg and her son is so Mama Bear's kicking in, so she can't just recede, which is what she's used to doing when you know, things get bad or scary. Now it's fight or flight, and bitch is gonna fight, you know, like we want to see that activation.
Yea, is she going to be successful?
I hope fucking So it's like to pit her against you know, Greg, And this way I think Mike was so smart in the writing because it's it's the recognition is so heavy.
It hits so hard when audiences see that.
And he's very sinister and in John in real life he's such a dear friend.
He's also so sweet, yell like so sweet.
But when he got in character, there's one tape, Oh, I jumped.
I was like, don't you can't smile at me like that?
Oh, because he would just like smile and like raise his iron life.
Yeah, And the variations of that character he's given us, Like, you really don't know if in that very first scene he appeared in in season one, if that was a long con from the beginning, it was something he figured out. There's so many things, ye that are under the surface, obviously with every character, but him being sort of the big boss of the show now at this point, the main antagonist of the show. Every time you see him it gets scary because it didn't start that way.
Yeah, and you know what he's capable of, right, So it's just like it's.
All in that first interaction that you two have this season though, I feel where you approach him at dinner, I.
Love that scene. It's both of you volleying it.
In this way that is like incredibly tense, Like you're not looking, like you're not like on your phone while you're watching this show.
Yeah, it's like it's one of those.
And I bring that up because this is a bad habit of mine now where I'm just like, Okay, whatever I'm putting on right now, Yeah, you know what I mean. But like, this is the thing that I think we're talking about, which is you can fill in the gaps as a viewer on Belinda's journey between one and three seasons one and three, where it's like her hopes were dashed, she has convalesced in the intervening time of like I'm gonna self start again, like since being disappointed and feeling like I had the slight preserver thrown at me.
Yeah, I feel like the empathy that she in the favor that she couraged season one is there and we see that like she is found a way to do that for herself, you know, like support herself and cheer herself on. And yeah, and I also think like it's fun to see her on a quasi vacation because we all have these vacation identities that we try on when we go out. It's just like, you know what, I got my vacation braids on. We like go out and wear these shoes that I've taken the tag off.
I never wore them before I wear them now.
Yeah.
So it's just like playing with identity and like who she wants to be. And I think it's really beautiful to play with someone who's such you know, putty ready to be molded and now she's about to be molded by circumstance.
Right.
I wonder how many months cumulatively have you spent living in a four seasons?
Oh? Boy?
Is it?
Like is it like almost a year doing this?
More?
Because I did? I did Sonic in Hawaiian that was four seasons as well.
Oh so you have you're a membership basically.
Like at this point, if they don't make me an ambassador, I don't know, well, I.
Don't know what it might like.
Did you hear about that cruise that's like we'll take you to all the White Lotus locations. You can have a White Lotus Expire vacation.
It's it's some vacation that Hawaii to Italy.
Yeah, like there's something you can do that.
First of all, it's Greg money. Also like it's like, you know, to have a white Lotus inspired vacation. It's like, you know what happens on the show, a lot of a lot of a lot of stuff.
Yeah, there's soon said.
That was just like they must have the best pr ta.
They don't.
They bury it all.
My god.
Okay, so we have to ask you the question that we asked all of our guests, and I'm excited to ask you this, which was what is the culture? And Natasha Rathwall that made you say culture was for you?
I thought about this question a lot also because I'm a fan of the show, and so I was just like, and I will say also, I've been trying to get on the show for ten years, but my schedule has been so dumb.
No, I mean like we've never been trying, We've.
Been chasing each other.
So this but this is the moment, this is right now.
Yeah, And I'm like Loki Embarrason what I'm about to say, But it's so true.
And it is the movie Grease.
Let's go well, at least you picked the best movie of all time. Yeah.
And I will say I feel like Greece too has not talked about enough.
No, certainly not about it. Let's talk about it, Okay.
I just feel like, one, you have a girl for all seasons, we have cool riders.
I feel like we get to see like Michelle Feife getting dirty, she's straddling a ladder.
Yeah.
But Greece like the og Yeah I just watched. I like I wore out the VHS.
Yeah, it would be on my letterbox. Four.
I think, oh, if I ever get asked that question by that incredible organization, yes, I will say one word Grease Greece, and then I'll figure out the other three.
But like, what is it about it for you?
Because for me, I think there's something about it's a some amalgamation of like the costumes and the the actors are committed to those insane characterizations, and obviously the incredibly catchy music. But is there anything specific for you?
Well, the music for sure, but also like I grew up in the church, very chaste, and so I relate it with a you know Sandra d.
Yes, good girl gone bad? Come on?
I was, I was like, yeah, so it was so much fun watching someone just like get pursued by the bad boy, and there was all of this kind of like you know it felt Austinian because they're like long, and.
You know, there's just this tension of just like when are they gonna kiss?
And it just like yeah, and it's just.
The tension plate, like we don't even get to see that, like the magic of that until like the end.
Yeah, because and then do you go. I think it's one of those things that like bi osmosis, I do know every line, and I think maybe most people do and don't even realize.
Yeah, it'll come on and.
Then every once in a while I was just like, oh, I don't know where my keys are, but I know exactly.
The beaterest of Grace would be like at any sort of like rented apartment that you would like you would go to on a family trip in like the person's like closet or something. For me, the thing about Greece, which is the thing that musicals on some level should be because they are musicals, because the emotion is so heightened that they you can't do anything but saying, is that it's the highest fantasy fantasy in the best way.
They drive off in the car.
Beauty school drop like are you kidding? He came from heaven.
That's actually not talked about enough. It's really number eight beaut school drop out. He came from heaven.
He came from heaven.
He literally came down to give her her guidance.
I also think that like I was when it came out, I was like I wanted to perform, like I saw that as such a like like it was Catharsis right on screen where I was like, oh that, I want to do something where I get to build it up to that point and my God, like.
It's like the spirit inside you like want to emulate that. That is like the strongest link that you can have as like a viewer.
Yeah, and it's so funny too, because like the movie couldn't be more white, but like for me, it was more about like the good versus evil, like bad and good and like I was able to sort of watch it through that lens and I mean just the jackets, like everything about it. I just remember watching it and like doing.
The little like you like everyone had.
I remember when when I was little, we would do like our little dance contest, Like that's one of the things that me and my friends would do, like me and the girls, And it was always you're the one that I want.
It was always Summer Night one of the best group numbers in any musical. Yeah, so good. It's so good.
And also then when you get a little older and you can really appreciate the depth, there are.
Things I could do. So, I mean, I believe this is.
My hot take. That might be a cold take because everyone might have it. Stock her channing that should have been an Oscar nomination.
I agree what she brought to There are worse things I could do that. That's a moment in movies.
It is everything And like you see her didn't she haven't or she had an abors or.
She lost the babe or something she lost. It was like a false alarm something like that. It was like it was a false alarm.
She's having this conversation.
Yeah, and that's like that's a lot, and the whole movie is a lot like they're talking about, like you know during Greece Lightning.
That was and that was that was my kind of like Chase brain missed that until I was much older, and then I was like, oh, no, right, I know what that's.
You know what that's you do musicals in high school. So I was Mama Rose and you were not.
See and I met when I was in college. She came to visit University of Maryland and we were doing you Can't Take It with you, and she was in the hallway and I have this like fun picture of me and her back then.
But wow, I did you guys did obviously musicals.
We did musical.
He did.
I didn't. Oh yeah, he was.
Like a high school was a Zach Caffred in high school musical, like was an athlete, but like secretly wanted to perform.
Right did your dad's sports sports sports?
Sports sports? But that wasn't really what held me back. All he wanted me to do is be involved. It was more just like gay on Long Island, right with all stuff up here. But I found it eventually.
I just want to I just want to own up to the fact that Natasha said I was Mama Rose and my brain clutched and I thought, you met Mama Morton from Chicago, But.
I but I did meet Queen Latifah at the variety of way she came up to me.
She was amazing.
She was amazing.
Something about her that like it's I.
Remember I met her years ago when I was doing the n YU newspaper and I went to interview her for Secret Life.
Of Bees and she came in with.
Her platinum blonde hair and sat down and just it was like, oh, now I know what it's like to be in the presence of.
A super star royalty. She radiates she is a queen.
Yeah, yeahs Mama Rose, that is I need to see that. You do need to take over her abduct I had.
My The guy who played my husband in that show was so gay. I was gay.
He was Herbie, so.
Herbie was so gay. And the kiss that we have was on like I believe it was on the cheek. I was just like, like, I believe it was upon my cheek.
I just remember there was we had. I mean it was so bootleg.
It was high school right, the have an egg roll, mister Goldstone.
All of that.
We had like a prop issue and it wasn't there. And I did improv, right since I've been doing improv since high school.
So like, did your object work it?
Yeah?
And people were just like that was it was a choice, and like, oh, I didn't know. And my director was just like, thanks for saving the scene. I was like, you got it, and I was just like embarrassing. My most embarrassing moment was auditioning for Wait.
My Fair Lady. He did My Fair Lady.
This was my junior year or my sophomore year, and I decided to learn sign language to the song that I was going to sing to because I didn't have confidence in my pipe, and so I forgot the lyrics to the song or the sign halfway through singing it. But my hands were already extended and moving, so it was just interpretive. Dan, Yes, I don't even remember what I was singing, but I just remember I was just like moving my hands and I left sobbing.
But wait a minute, I was cast, but you were cast.
I'm saying, there's something special about that audition, and I'm like, I don't know what that is.
I want her in my show.
I want her in my show. What that movie?
Because it's going to watch half signing sobbing?
It was so it was just, yeah, it was a cluster fuck of beauty.
No, but like this is the Natasha Rothwell thing of I'm going to power through and it's gonna be compelling enough and you're gonna fucking get love it.
If there's anything about me, it's like it takes a lot for me to give up generally, yeah, and to the point of like, and I think it's also my brain. I'm neurospicy a lot, and so I love solving problems. Yes, so like a no or like some like I'm just like, oh, that's just I'll figure it out or I'll.
Work through it's an obstacle currently, yes, but it will not be the definitive answer correct.
But to be neurospicy and to be like collaborative is killer combo.
I feel.
I think, yeah, it's a one two punch. But I also have learned more of myself in my forties. It's like I'm now a boundaried battie because I know that I recharged solo and I.
Knew that before, but I I.
Am a people pleaser, recovering people pleaser, so like I would exhaust myself as I'm sure you know, it's just like I will give until there's nothing left.
When did you clock that and adjust that?
I want to say in my thirties. I felt that.
Well, SNL kind of happened in my mid thirties, and it was around that time where it was just like, you know, you understand when you're on the show, you have to promise them at everything and making time for other people came at like a cost, and so it was one of those things of like I could hang out with you and make you feel good, and I would feel good for making you feel good, but then I would be like a shell of a human tomorrow, And so having to make.
Those calls and then I think it's still taken me.
I mean, I'm still in the process of releasing the guilt I have for choosing me.
And do you know what I mean?
So like, even though I've learned how to do it, it's still like not letting go of that guilt and consider myself worthy of you know, the choice.
But the guilt probably And this is not like me saying this in a dire way, Like I've learned to just not accept it but live with it because it's going to regenerate itself with every interaction, with every choice you make for yourself. It comes with that little tax. Yeah you know what I mean, Like guilt tax.
There's a guilt tax. Gilt tax.
And I think too, like the the amount of guilt tax you pay decreases the longer you're in therapy. So for me, the more I've worked on myself, I used to have to pay a heavy toll and now I pay a lot less and maybe I'll have an easy pass at one point and I don't have to worry about it.
But then they'll throw a congestion price. Yeah, it's impossible.
That is It's I think for me, it was like it was honestly the pandemic. It was being forced to be alone that made me realize, like, maybe I've always needed this, you know what I mean saying.
I was three months in and I was just like, I'm good.
Do you remember feeling like that? I was like, oh wow, okay.
Yeah, and then you deal with the anxiety of when things lifted. I remember feeling like, am I crazy and weird for feeling like I don't want to necessarily go back to the life I had because I was exhausted.
All the time.
Because I think that it also connects back to us having to grind so hard, like I think that we all have different experiences of not being in exactly the mold of what was you know, out there being shown as like a successful comedian whatever it is, and I remember feeling like, oh, I have no choice but to exhaust myself because they won't just give the opportunities there will be someone that they see in a more one to one way. Yeah, so all of a sudden, your wheels have spun so fast in your twenties and into your thirties, and then something says like, hey, cosmically we're stopping.
And then it's like that was.
When I was like, oh, thank god, I'm in therapy because I have to deal with the fact that.
I don't want to rejoin society.
Yeah but wait, so would you would you say that it's like an opposite track in terms of like what Mal goes through and how to dial loan. It's like, this is someone who wants to sort of like break out of her solitude in a way.
Yeah, I think it's also I basically wrote the show is kind of like a love letter to that unhealed version of myself, where it's just like I don't even know if she.
Knows herself enough.
To decide what it is, you know, Like, so it's breaking out of the comfort of.
The known and going into the unknown.
And I think in doing that, it's not guaranteed that you're gonna love it, you know what I mean, Like you might hit And that's why we always called her like our human rumba, like you hit wall.
After wall after wall, but you're still getting your shit clean.
And for her being able to like make those mistakes and like take risks and figure out if she is a people person. You don't know if you don't allow people in your life. Yeah, I do think that, like aspirationally, I tacked her affinity for being around people onto the character because for me, and I love people, but I'm a small dose girl. Yeah, I mean, like I love give me like y'all too conversation.
I will talk for eight hours.
And then we'll be good for a little bit. Yeah, and that's perfect.
And that's perfect, do you know what I mean? Yeah, A room full of people like.
No, see how are you the other night? Then at Vanity Fair while we saw you? Like because that that, I get really anxious about those things. And then I find when I'm there, I'm okay and I'm actually like there's even enjoying it sometimes.
But it takes me a lot to drag ass there.
I okay, how do I say this so I get invited back?
No? No, no, no no, we love we love being there.
So I loved being there.
My default is not that environment of course, and so I parked myself towards the entrance and I people watch.
That's kind of my happy place.
So I was just watching the like the looks come in, watching the people watching conversations. And I tend to default in any environment, not just high stakes oscar weekend parties. I want to find a corner I want to watch, and then I want to find like a person or a couple of people that I'm going to have probably an oversharing conversation, you know what.
I'm like, like whatever, like let's get in. So what about your father?
You know, like type of conversations anchor, And so I went there. I took up her paranolol because weded blocking. So that way my nerves do would be the best of me. I brought the director of development of my production company.
And she was tasked, but she was tasked by my publicist to make sure that I did turns around the room.
That's an amazing make sure that Natasha does at least some turns and turns around the room.
So I would sit there and then she'd be like you ready to go do a lap? And I'm like okay, and then.
I do around the room the room, I should have said that as the pop culture that changed my life.
The mini series about absolutely, but Greece is I mean, connecting Greece as Austinian is important.
I feel like I did some work just then.
You did. What you did was you talk to children.
I taught the children, since we genuinely talked children children.
The children, and now it's like, let's go back and teach him. Okay, so you did. You did a couple, you did a walk about the room, and it was good.
It was good, and it's it's I don't this sounds so like fucking tweet and like and like, but it was so cool to see people that I've only ever seen TV in film and like, I'm not someone who fangirls because I do feel that there's a distance between me and them even though I'm in the same room. And this isn't some kind of like woe was me, Like you know, it's poster syndrome bullshit. It's literally just like you reside on that stratosphere and you're allowed to be there, and.
I just my joy is just observing, you know.
So that was my journey that night was just like watching I did go up to one person. You'll never guess one person out of all of the people there, I didn't approach anyone.
But this one is this someone I don't think who we saw. Is it someone who was like has been around.
For a while or a long time.
Okay, I'm gonna say. I'm going to say Billy Crystal.
Oh was he now?
Because now I'm thinking, because honestly, what I'm realizing is that we did what you said, but it was with John Ham at the bar.
We were so happy to just park with it.
And so now I'm realizing I didn't see a lot of people, so I can't even guess. So I'm just gonna throw out of guests and say list goal.
No.
John Waters.
John Waters was there, so he was Oh my god, so University of Maryland, Marylyn, Tracy Turnblatt.
She was a fatty batty before I even knew I like could be one.
And he was standing there in his suit with a mustachetron on pink huge sneakers, and then all these like gorgeous starlets were just walking past him, no, no, not knowing that he was. And so he was by himself, and I was just like, just do Itasha, just do it. You can go. I was like, excuse me, mister Waters, and he's like, yes. It was just like, my name is Natasha Rothell. I'm a huge fan. I went to University of Maryland. He's like Marilyn Baltimore.
I love it.
And I was just like and I just thank you for Tracy Turnlett like and everything, and he was just so warm and then I just kind of like stood there and then right away.
That's such a good moment, and I was just.
Like, I mean, he's such an icon, such an icon icon.
That was like a whole moment, and I felt like he felt like he was even though he wasn't against a wall, but he was like by himself on his phone.
I was like, oh, I see you.
Yeah Water even you were just like yeah, Pard, you know what I mean.
Yeah, And hairspray by the way, like in obvious ways and also in spiritual ways that are like not as obvious camanic piece to Grease, I think, yes, you know what I mean.
Absolutely, I think that like they both dealt with different eras obviously, and I feel like the yeah, the just the culture of Baltimore. He just was such he's the you know, the the Grand Poe of Baltimore.
Yeah, could be po, but I think it's him.
It's him.
Yeah, wait, okay, but this is the thing, like the distance that we feel at these events between ourselves and like the people that are walking by.
Yeah, it like it works in every direction.
Because I was saying this on our last episode, like we were just talking, chatting it up. I think like it was right before I saw you, when we saw you. The person who ran up to me and tapped me on the shoulder and was like, oh my god, thank god you're here. Her, You'll never guess. Megan the Stallion was a mouth.
She was like oh. She was like hey, oh hi, Oh my god, thank god you're here. Like I don't know anybody here. And I was just like Meg, Meg, what are you talking about?
Girl? You're like titty out Meg.
She looked amazing. I turned around. I looked at her and I just go period.
And she goes back period, come in And I was just like, oh my god.
But I feel like everyone.
I mean, I feel like that level of like social anxiety feels so unique and it's hard to accept that someone else like her is like, oh my god, I might have said the wrong thing, just like my Ariola showing there mine was page six.
Yeah, no, there's a little there's a little slip.
It was fine, it was yeah, but no, I feel like I have my mind just runs a mile a minute. And to know that someone like her is also a head case, it's kind of It's nice, but.
It's hard to understand.
That's what you have to remember, is it's like, not only are these all human beings, but they are also human beings who are in the arts and at one point, like we're just like the weirdos that wanted to be accepted, et cetera. And this is a big night for pretty much everyone. Of course, you know somewhere in the crowd and there I'm sure we had our like major ego narcissists, but like not that we talk to, you know what I mean. It was kind of nice, yeah, bringing it back to the White Lotus. What I love about it too, is it feels like Mike really gets together people who are freaks in a way. It's like it feels like a theater troop in a way. It's not like a collection of celebrities. Like of course, there are those names that you kind of just know that pop out like your Jennifer Coolige or Aubrey Plaza. That feels like there's moments of like, oh your Parker Posey, like we know who.
She is, like gods.
But what I love is that it's giving It's like a community of people who are you know, as actors, artists and giving them the platform to now be tearing it up on the most popular show in the yeah world, in the world.
It's so insane because truly season one was meant to.
Be a limited series one and done, and so for it to be what it is now, you would think it would change the recipe, but Mike has not changed it. It's like theater camp, Like you go there and every single person there loves the craft these words like the craft and like being able.
I remember when I got to.
Set, just flew in crashed that night, walked down a set just to watch, and I stayed and to watch the girls. They were shooting like their first breakfast scene, the three Ladies Yes, And I she was like, Oh, I'm just watching Masterclass, Like I'm just like watching them cook.
It was so cool to be like.
Oh, yeah, we're back, and it felt like the same pure show that I was on originally it's the DNA.
Everything is still there.
Even though they got a bigger budget, you know what I mean, but more cast members, but like each person, I mean, like you said, everyone's a freak. Everyone's obsessed about what they do, and each of them bring something so special and unique.
I mean, I'm working with Leslie Bibb now and I was watching her like process and I'm like, wow, I didn't. I was like, she really has like this amazing process and she's so excellent.
And then I.
Obviously knew she was cast in White Lotus, but I'm watching White Lotus and I was thinking back to, you know, watching her do what she does, and I'm like, this has to be like such an exciting environment because you know, that's the way Carrie Coon does it.
Like I'm loving Michelle Mamhead on the show.
And also again like the idea of the very specific examination of three old friends on a vacation, Like it's.
One of my favorite storylines.
I told when I cause I binged the whole show when I got all the scripts and so, and that was one of the first things I was just like, you have embodied adult female friendship in a way where I'm just like it was uncanny.
And something specific, so specific about one of them being a TV star.
Oh god, that's paid for it. Yes, I feel like and now now that we're getting to the point where it's like you kind of get the sense that she's you know, gonna maybe use that might bring it down, might bring it up, like might might do the big boss vacation friend thing.
It's getting so.
Thick in that way, and just like the way that she ticks and the way I can't decide. And this is a huge testament. Like I'm talking to some people who are like, oh, those women really hate each other. But then I'm like, no, I think they really love each other, but I'm just frustrated by the way life has changed them. Yeah, and they're I think they're all really trying to connect with each other. I don't think that it's so of course, they've got their envies and jealousies and like their own personal insecurities, but I don't think we're watching three women that hate each other.
Well, I think that, like, and I don't know if you guys find this, Like when I go back home for the holidays or whatever, you revert back to the version of yourself when you're around people who knew you when thank you, And so I feel like what we're seeing is them in high school in middle school behaving with or trying to communicate with their actions.
Instead of their words, right yes, And.
So there's this passive aggressiveness, and I think it looks like a lack of emotional intelligence when they all possess it, but they're opting not to, I think because they're when when the when these three are gathered, they turn back into the versions of their self that felt jilted, that felt like they did everything, that felt like their beauty was all that there is. And so watching them play those subtleties and then they're the tension is they're trying to like resist who they were and become who they are are. And then they're also all trying to become something else, like they're trying to grow together. So it's like such an interesting intersection of all of those like all of that tension, you know.
Well, like when they go into town and they get like hosed down by these kids that it kind of is the reset for the or No, it's like them being shoved back into adolescens in a way, like yeah, being picked on and then the rest of that day plays out in a way where they're like trying to like compete for like male attention, and that feels like the most dangerous, treacherous teenage circumstance.
Yeah, and it's so well crafted in that.
I mean from the first episode her single sob like a child cut too, I mean, she's level she and then like Leslie like in that episode where it's revealed that she's got let's just say, political differences, and the way she like looks at them longingly, like but there is such a disappointment in herself, like like are they right? And I think that that that's something that's really jumping out towards the end here is they are returning to a childlike state, like every single time it's insinuated that they're old, the way that Michelle like her line readings of panic about like what are you talking about?
We're not old. We can still have fun to the point.
Where they're gonna push They're gonna push each other into a situation that is truly dire and uncomfortable because youth is all that matters to her, or that she's been told that that's all that should matter, right, right, and there's just it's really he's done it again, if you can believe it.
Yeah, how are how are you? And John?
I'm curious how are you guys playing those interactions because there is like palpable fear from you yea. And I'm feeling it watching from home, like, oh my god, no, Natasha, like you're like terror.
It's terrifying.
Yeah.
And it's also I think so we we had him on set the whole time, but.
It was a secret.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, he hung out with us, but it wasn't a ton in the beginning, and like it was just like trying like.
All that kind of stuff.
And so I think being on set with him was always a treat because I was like, oh, I get some John time today, you know, like you know, because he was.
Off exploring or doing whatever.
And he is such a chameleon that like in those moments where he's just like looking at me and then he kind of tilts his head and smiles, it's just like my like, so.
It just works on you on like a primal level, yes, like like.
And also it's just like it preys upon all of sort of like my natural inclinations to like be liked and wanted and like why does he hate me? And like what does he want to do? And like you know, how can I fix this? And like oh he's a bad guy, and like, well do you want to hurt? Like there's she's filled with fear and curiosity at the same time, and that tension is where she's living, which is just like no way to be and John is just so and he Yeah, his character's so antithetical to who he is as a person, and so when he just plays those uh when he comes.
Out and surprises me, huh.
I watched it and screamed along with myself, that's how much I was, Like, Oh, I was like there he goes.
Yes. Wow.
So just to like ask about Mike White as a director, because like he does everything, but I feel like I'm very curious as to the process of like the scene work, because that is what I think is so amazing about the show is the dialogue and the scene work and the small things.
Yeah, is he encouraging of any improv.
Like like I would imagine with you someone that's got such a strong background and someone that he trusts and has done this, like or is it kind of clinical on the page? Because I could see it being either he.
Plays, so we're there's a scene in next week's episode.
I won't spoil anything.
Seven you mean seven? I don't know.
It's not seven? Is it seven?
If it's up through six, we can talk about and talk about it.
Okay, then I won't talk about it.
But what I will say there are moments where I improvise, and there are moments where he wants to get it as written but will give you direction to play with.
It A fun run, A fun run, yeah, but he.
It's less a fun run. It's more just like he wants options.
And I remember I told the cast this because like he's unlike any director I've ever worked with, and again just being such a people pleaser and you know, the ever the good student. If you give me a note, I'm going to do that. No, yeah, and I will not vary from that. And so like he will come in and give like a completely opposite note. And so I take that as I totally fucked up that last note. And I remember talking to him about it like season one and he was like, no, I just want options. He's like, he mail, did I want options? And so and I also know him to be the kind of director like he's not going to move on until he has it. And that's the benefit of like being directed by the guy who's also working alongside and amazing editor, John Valerio and John he's on set, so the editor's there with you, so they know, oh, we got that. So I had to take my ego off the table, and that allowed me to work with him as a director in a way that felt like I was having fun yecause I was like I could play around and he also knows like my improv chops and so, and some of the scenes were Belinda's like, you know, having a little bit of a comedic moment.
He's just like.
That is where the comfort and the trust lies in terms of an actor and director, where it's like you're not going to move on until work until you're happy. And that way, I'm comfortent in the knowledge that like, you got it, like that, yeah, you have what you need.
It takes a minute to learn that, though, you know what I mean, because I think and maybe this again speaks to the fact that it was a lot of self grinding and hard work in so many different areas that there is tends to be. I think, especially when I was like first starting out booking jobs. I don't know how you guys feel, but it was really never enough in a way that I realized at one point was actually hurting me, not helping me, Like it wasn't helping me to walk away from every setup being like I didn't do a good enough job. Because also people can see that, and what they're thinking as a director is, Oh, they don't trust me, they don't know that I got this, when that relationship is one of the most important things.
Yeah, and yeah, when.
You learn that of also, just like there's that inner critic right that I've had to wrestle my whole life of just like that not enoughness in literally every aspect of my life. And I feel like the place that I've gotten to, I have such confidence in my creative and professional life, and that is trickling down into my personal life. But it took me a long time to be able to, for example, create an award winning, critically acclaimed TV show and have it canceled and to be like, I did that shit, Yeah, do you know what I mean?
Like, I don't know.
Where it broke down.
I don't know where it.
Broke down, but I can look back at what I've done with a sense of pride and not not enoughness. And that was a moment where I was just like, oh a bitch had some growth and that's.
A speech at the Indie Spirits. Was I like stood up? Yeah, you know what I mean?
Yeah, it was.
I mean how the dissonance of like accepting award for a show that's canceled.
It was just kind of like it.
All came up.
But I think that like that that not enoughness. I think when I reacted to that news, I obviously had feelings, but when I was able to yeah, the the boomerang back, you know, just being able to come back to myself and know that, like I did what I was supposed to do and there's circumstances out of my control and sometimes things aren't fair.
Yeah, but you take this and you and it extrapolates forward into like the rest of your career. I can't wait for who did I marry?
Thanks babe. I'm so excited.
It's gonna be fucking I mean, it's what a saga.
It was such a saga, and there's so much more. You don't even.
Know are you? Are you talking about Teresa?
Yeah?
Okay, Yeah, I love it.
It's and it's so lovely and Marty Knoxon, who's unreal.
Yeah, let's talk about unreel. Can wait?
Though. When I moved to La, I went to my very first like LA thing I did. I went to an f YC panel.
For there everybody, yeah, everybody, sure apple be that should have been And I mean when like that was, that was amazing.
The whole cast is everything.
But she's with me, we're co creating and so and she's Yeah, her her writing and everything is incredible. And she'll tell you she lived she lived a similar story, so like her, she's such a value add But yeah, hopefully we'll be bringing that sin.
I love it. Well. I've always been curious.
I've never gone to ask you about this, and now I'm like a new web as they say, like a new otaku. Like I went to Japan for the first time and I'm like, this is this is my place? But what was your what was your time in Tokyo? Like so differenttause you were working It was like.
Yeah, every time in your life in my I was twenty six twenty seven when I got there. I was teaching English part time. I started performing at the Tokyo comedy Store, which is like their version of Boom Chicago. Yeah, it's just like they had X that's performing for a lot of like largely expect audience.
It was wild. I was black in Japan, Barack wasn't in office yet.
He got elected that year, and I just remember like riding my bike around town and people shouting.
Like oh bumma, and I would.
Just like just like wave my guess, like I was just like owning it.
Wow.
People would even pre his inauguration, like people would take pictures with me, pull my.
Hair, just like oh God. But I did mind it, Okay.
I didn't mind it because it came from a place of curiosity and it wasn't steep the fucking like trauma response that is living in America as a black person, you know what I mean.
So like it was just like little like people were just.
Like, oh my god, how long did it take for you to like have that understanding of like, oh, this is this is just secure pretty.
Quickly because it's such an homogenous country, and the only kind of like racism that I peeped it was like if you were African American, they were cool with you, but if you were from the continent Wow.
They were kind of like a little suspicious.
And I didn't know that because one of the guys that I was working with at the school where I was teaching, he was African American, but he looked like he was from the continent. And we were going to this like karaoke bar and they wouldn't let him in and we were just kind of like, well, what's going on. He's like, I know this happened. Sometimes, let's go to another one. So that was wild. But I loved it, like the ID is the best time.
I loved it and I was obsessed with it. And then towards the end it dawned on me. I was like, the reason the toilets are so clean and all that shit is because the reason why everyone knows where they have to go and fall in line is because it's homogeneous.
Yeah, And like, is that is that like a worthwhile thing to aspire to? You know?
What do I'll say about that?
I don't aspire to homogeny, but I think when you are in an environment where you are othered, you see yourself more clearly. I felt like I was wearing polka dots to a stripes party. Everything that I was trying to run from I saw more acutely, and for me being in an environment where I felt so seen and so watched, it was just like, okay, bitch, audit who you are and who you want to be and how you present yourself. And I think that, like, while it's not ideal, I do think moments of homogeny can remind you of who you are and require you to show show up for yourself. And I think that when I was there, you know, I was so you know, I was had lived in DC, graduated from University of Maryland. I knew I wanted to go to New York or I was terrified. I was like, I want to live some life. So I did this like a little adventure and wherever you.
Go, there you are.
Yeah.
And I feel like that's also.
Like, especially when you're on vacation, you're supposed to relax. I feel like that's one of the greatest things about it. Is it really it picks apart the idea that it's like, Okay, I'm relaxing and now I'm alone with my brain and I'm along with these people who are close to me that I've elected to spend time with and their brain with no tech.
I did that once for a week.
I did a Buddhist meditation retreat for four days, five days, four nights.
Oh yeah, this was like no, no tech, no speaking damn.
Oh I've heard of these speaking things.
Yeah yeah no, And.
Do you hear the thoughts more loudly or what? Like, what's what's going on?
I felt like I was at like a rock concert, yeah, because there.
Was no way to And here's what I did.
So, like again, rule follower, before we entered the silence, you could ask questions and I was just like books. I brought books and he's like, nope, because you're just like distracting yourself. And I was just like, so no books, no, not like I'm trying to go through all things, like I know, no gadgets. But I was like, what are the tactile sort of like analog things I could do to like again, and he was just like journaling. That's the one thing that was permitted. My hand was thrown up gang signs.
But I wrote so much.
I was like I was like.
Cramping because I needed to have place to put it. But I will say, yeah, it was clarity, clarity, timesten.
It was amazing.
Eventually, you got there.
Eventually I got there like kicking and screaming clarity. And then now I'm also just like glued to my phone.
Party one of the most anxiety inducing scenes of all of White Lotus so far, and I obviously it was because it was the first scene and I was like waiting to see what was happening. But when they when Zion was sitting in meditation, I was just like it.
Always just it makes me anxious.
I know people always feel like, you know, to go, yeah, go home and meditate. I'm like, see, you're driving me nuts. And I also think that there's something to that in the whole show, this idea of what happens when you sit with yourself. Are you even able to entertain that idea?
Yeah?
And I just think those themes are becoming even more clear as we get to the end, like who are you really?
Who are you really?
And it's yeah, it's just reconciling the like who you want to be and who you are, And I think that's the constant struggle. And I think the more you resist the truth of who you are and don't adjust your aspirations to be in line with who you are, that's just where the tension lies. I think Mike does that so beautifully in the show. You have all of these people like hitting who they are like head on.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just really interesting because in now thinking about this thing of like the absence of tech and all that stuff, it's like it's a place that's asking you to let go of all those things. And now we have you know, the older ratlyft gentleman like paniccause you can't communicate needing to do that to like get information, and it's driving them crazy. Parker has lost her drugs, you know what I mean, she's gonna be without her things. I think honestly, Patrick Schwarzenegger, no one wants to fuck him in that entire place. And he's got this like thing in his head that that's where his power lies and his like, you know, vitality and sexual prowess, and he's just getting all he can get that from is his goddamn brother.
Yeah.
And it's it's just been a really interesting specific test of all those things.
Yeah, I mean, and it's I think too, like with each of them, you see the ugly coming to the surface. And I feel like with Zion played by the very symmetrical Nicholas beautiful man.
It was a very like edible complex moment.
I was like, my, my, my, like, and I was.
Like, here's in the pool in the last episode.
And I turned to Greta and I was like, when he gets out of this water, it's going to be on the site, it's gonna be something else.
And low Ball to make it worse, he's like such a good.
Dude, saying to him we had dinner like the first week we got there, and I was just like, you were.
Too symmetrical to be this nice, and I was, and he.
Was just like what I was like, No, it's like a lot of guys who look like you aren't this nice.
But no, I think, like, you know, everyone's very ugly.
Trust me, I've seen the ball, You've done it.
Yeah, but yeah, I think like everyone's working on their ship. But I think like with Zion, you see it's bringing his good out yea, you know what I mean, Like he's rising to the occasion. So I do think that like things that test us, you know, they yeah, they prove your metal.
I'm so scared about what's going to happen, terrified, and the.
Thing is like it's like it would be one thing, if we knew this was a show where like they wouldn't kill boring, but that's not what this is. I mean, we saw Jennifer Coolidge fall right off that boat and hit her head.
I screamed.
People think I knew.
I had no idea about that.
So your insight into season two was nothing nothing.
I was at home watching him, like I love this for her, and then like watching and yeah, when she fell off, I screamed, and.
Then perfect character. It's so tough.
And famously she's she hates the water being on it and gets famously seasick. They had a dazzled bucket bucket for her season one to puke into. So I remember saying to Mike, I was like the cruelty of this moment, and he was like, well, I had to write, you know, she had to do.
And one of the most iconic scenes is the ashes in the water during Fantasy.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They put her on the water both seasons. Yeah, she's on vacation on the water for sure.
It's so funny, and Mike and her like best best best friends, and so it's so funny.
I'm just like, oh my, you're gonna have to pay.
Back back is mean. I hope Belinda kills Greg. This is what I'm hoping, That's what I hope.
I'm just comforted to like see you and be in the same space as you because I'm just.
You know, I'm alive, because I know you're alive and here.
Speaking of being here, we probably should move into I don't think it, no, honey, which is where we're all asked to be here in president in a sixty second takedown of culture.
That absolutely must occur.
And I feel I need to speak to some response that happens to the White Lotus this season. I just want to I want to check you and truly, I think make a point about let's just let me just talk.
Okay, it's Matt Rodgers. I don't think so many as time starts now.
I don't think so honey. People saying that the White Lotus incests this season is too much. Where were you during Game of Thrones? Thing to say when it was heterosexual incest and then all of a sudden, now that are Toto sexual incests. Now that we see some making out and some jacking off, all of a sudden, people are up in larching. Sorry, there was incestual procreation on Game of Thrones and you said nothing. Maybe you thought it was a little silly, but you weren't like it's too much for me. Close friends of ours saying that's disgusting. I don't I don't want to see that. I don't want to go there. This is white lotus. You didn't think it was gonna go there. I don't think so. Honey, you better love and enjoy. Get your popcorn out when these two men kiss, because I am rooting for it. I hope they go all the waeconds. I hope we see these brothers make it to the altar together. I want the white lotus to white lotus all over the place.
That I'm pretending to be two.
Gay brothers who are doing it all.
Over each other.
Grow up.
I don't think so.
Money and that's one minute that might be my best one in a long time. I can't follow that.
I know I had that in me.
Matt Rogers Caper for gay and up, because I'm saying, you're right, there's not.
There was not that much noise during Game of three. No, certainly nothing even approaching it.
Yeah.
I think it's because like you can't really project yourself onto one of the cares of Game of Thrones and be like, that could really happen to my child, Do you know, like you watch you like I might be dating a guy who.
Did, Like sure, you know, like or like there's all of these things.
I'm telling you.
It's these well let mean, let me not, but let me it's these families with a lot of money that things go back a very long time. That is where the weird stuff happens. And that is it is no mistake that they are that kind of like family and they're they're engaging in this type of thing. And what I'll also say is that the discomfort with it is and this is very intentional I think on Mike White's part, and he's been like this from the beginning. There is a fascination with the male butt and it makes people think of gay sex and the ick factor they're in. And I'm just saying that is the way we make love, get over it and grow up.
And grow up theory of the abject You're you don't like it because it's it's poop, isn't nearby?
Yeah, That's what I'm saying is it's like.
That's statological, it's scatological and what I always think, like, is he doing a butt call for his male actors, because it's always popping off.
But Adam demarka, we will not forget. I'm just saying like it's I see what that is. Yeah, and therapy that's really it's Shakespearean right right.
It's like to me, I feel like that's the cool thing about the motifs he's using this season, like it feels.
Very classical, classical.
Yes, I agree, And also I really appreciate that in the second season two with the opera of it all.
Oh yeah, I thought that that was there's.
Really and you kind of it blows my mind that he can make these shows. Obviously there there are white lotus and they come with those themes. We of course have this very similar setup every season. But this like real commitment to and fascination with the culture surrounding the places he decides to explore, I think is even more impressive than people realize.
Oh, this season is incredible.
Yeah, I've seen a lot of people who have a deep knowledge of taime music history of like the rock and the disco and all these different genres that have like moved through Thailand. Like people being like, no, the way that they're you the music supervising on the show is excellent.
The way they're using time music is very, very very sophisticated.
Yeah, I feel like Thailand for me feels like a character on the show this season, of course, And I think it's a beautiful love letter to the culture of Thailand. And I learned when I was there. I had no idea. They've never been colonized, they've never been to war, and they call it the Land of Smiles, and so it's just the foundation of Thailand is this openness and it's pervasive and it's like the the Thai crew was like every Thai hand that touched this production was just like did it out of love? And I've never been surrounded by that, you know, in the same way.
And yeah, I.
Think that like from music supervision to all of the things I mean, of course, and just like they tapped like Thaie Royalty to be a part of the show, I mean, Lalisa, of course.
I just feel like, I mean, it's impressive this.
I'm gonna whip out the phone and say, Bowen Yang clearly has and I don't think so, honey.
Today there's is about too much being said about something mine is about not enough.
And with that too much, not enough narrative. This is Bowen Yang's I don't think so, honey. His time starts now.
I don't think so, honey.
There should be a huge din of conversation around Li Lisa's performance in White Lodu season three. I'm not seeing enough chatter discourse about the groundedness with which she is performing this character. All the scenes between her and I took are so sweet. I'm nervous for that. Something is something bad is gonna happen there, and I don't like it. I don't like this feeling in me that I've been sitting with for weeks. But she is blowing me away. Obviously black pink Stan least Stan for life. She was someone that my starstruck moment at the Oscars was honestly walking past hers. I was coming off presenting and she was about to walk on for performing, and we waved at each other, and I was like, oh my god, Lisa, that smile, that million dollar smile. I Lovelisa so much. Why aren't we Why aren't the gays talking about this more? Why are there more?
You know? I just want to see the memes. I'm not seeing enough love Lisa memes. I'm seeing a lot of Parker. I'm seeing a lot of Patrick. We love Patrick.
I need to see more. I need to see Blenda memes. I need to see Lalasa memes. And that's one man and that's one manute.
You know what it is.
It kind of goes hand at hand with the thing of like, oh, this season feels slow, feels slow. No, I feel like this season is the most cinemata because what is going to happen? And I know with Lisa, I know there's a twist coming. Yes, I know that there's gonna be something that goes down with her character that like makes it bigger than it is.
And I feel like because it has to be, because it's her.
It's just so I'm close, I know, I know.
I love her so much. Yes, I met her mother on set. She's so down to earth. She's just real and so sweet and like just loves the craft of acting and like it's.
So was so nervous, just really and she is like she would she.
Would be out and about like if we were like, oh, let's go grab dinner here or whatever. Mobbed by of.
Course, like tail international superstar.
Yeah, like it was insane, like Beyonce level fandom over there, and she is so gracious and like kind and but the acting is out.
We'll talk about.
Someone who is used to working her fucking ass off. I mean, like, you know, have you seen the documentary like it's it's you have.
To make me watch it? Before I was like, I need to do some more research. I can't just listen to the music, like you need to watch the docs.
Yeah, we saw them at Coachella. It was like four machines.
It was it was wild, and I mean, like a person like that, I would say, like I say about Beyonce, don't put anything past someone that works.
I don't know, Oh we need to as well. I mean I would.
Feel like she moves like a virgo.
You know what you need to find out? What are you?
Can you guess?
Wait?
Because I would have said Leo. But now as a result of this conversation, I don't know, are.
You score bio?
I'm libra?
You're a libra? Okay.
So we had Kate Blanchette yesterday and she was saying people who are libras aren't necessarily just out and proud about their librinus. Are you out and proud about your libert I love my librinus.
Libra is not something to not be proud of you. No, no, I love it.
But we were just saying, like people libras don't feel like they need to tell everyone they're a libra. Like we're aces in a scorpio and we're so loud in my out here.
I see scorpio, bestie, yeah, water signs.
Okay, she's in aries. Oh I like that.
There's the fire fire. I love that.
In fact, I was looking at it forward, one of those like you know, you know, swipe through Instagram things today that's like, here's what a cancer need?
Is what that?
It made a point about pisces an area, so I might have to text a Lisa. I'll get her information. Boy'll love it.
Okay, is it time for your I don't think so, so nervous, don't made for this moment? Okay, Okay, this is Natasha Rothwalls. I don't think so, Honny and her time starts now.
I don't think so, honey, Stop asking me about white lotus spoilers. But that's all the emotional labor black women have had to carry in this country Yeah, you not want a narry another person asking me to drop the bag that I.
Have secured, and an effort to make you sleep at night. It's not my job to make you sleep at night.
You need to put yourself to be Stop asking black.
Women to heal.
You watch the fucking TV show your.
Answers, but watching the show like everybody else, you enjoy the fact that I'm on something that's exciting and I don't have to walk around being worried that I'm gonna spoil something because you keep trying to sneak in questions. Do you really think you in the middle of Target.
That you, sir, that I just met.
And don't know you're the one that's going to make me give up the ghost?
No, fuck yourself and stop going in the fifteen items or over. I know you got twenty items. You I'm not and I'm not telling you function about the show.
Watch that's one.
Minute, amazing, high energy today. Yeah, it's not going to be you Target, and it's not going to be you, and it's not going to be the man in.
Target, man in Target, the bell boy, the guy in the cat like people have been harassing me.
It's like you want to tell them you don't want it. You don't want to find out this way.
No, you don't want to find out this experience.
It through the viewing process, like the way it's meant to be.
I think also White Lotus is hearkening back the way you know, it's water cooler television. It's once a week and it's just like appointment television, and and folks are so gimme, gimme, gimme. They can't wait, you know what I mean. And so for me, I'm just like give into what this show is. You know, it's hearkening back to like fucking Dallas. They had hour episodes, you know, like being able to tell a story over time. I feel like the anxiety of the culture is just like making people.
Yes, I need more and more and more, and it gets people mean about it too. Yes, Like I find that that's obviously dugged down the online blah blah blah boring conversation about how Twitter looks. But what I'm saying is we should be so lucky to be in a time when we have an HBO Prestige show that is water cooler on every Sunday night. We are always living in a better world when that is the case, and it feels like we had a golden age there and now we kind of like, you know, we're We're just to put it mildly, we are eating right now, and so enjoy your food and joy by shoe swallow, take time to digest because more courses are.
I'm not going to be the one like I like work too hard.
No.
I was like, if anybody's got loose lips, it's Parker.
That's just true. I think she's already slips. She's already No way did she she said such?
She was?
I think she was found or something.
Someone came out and said, oops, I accidentally said something wrong. Maybe this is about something else.
It's not on the text chain yet. Maybe I don't know.
Maybe maybe we'll cut this out. But I mean, you've been sitting on this information for like a year at this point.
Anyway, right, no longer hire Bob. So I got cast before the strike. Oh and I was sitting on it secretly while I was shooting How to Dialog. They announced it thinking we were going to shoot that October.
So I was the only one announced, and then no one else was announced.
And for a whole year you knew well yes, well no that was when what was the strike May May May through. I didn't shoot again until I got to Thailand in February. Lord, so I've been sitting on it for that plus, so two years.
Almost two years. Yeah, you're not going to give up the ghosts. No, no, we're not going to Target right now. Change the policy, change your policy. Target.
I will admit I did go in yesterday to buy the exclusive Gaga vinyl. Well, but I think people, people on threads at least, have have given each other a pass. Yes, the little monster's been like, you can go to Target just to buy the vine. But I've been proud of myself my Amazon and Target shopping way. How's the Chick fil a consumption? Chick fil a consumption is virtually gone as well?
Oh yeah, virtually gone.
Virtually gone, as he picks chicken out of his teeth.
Yeah, you smell like the floor myself.
It's not easy for me, my addiction to both Target and Amazon.
Like obviously on the blackout day.
I didn't this is this is it feels chic, but here's some shady ship.
I had filled up my cart.
Wait twenty four hours later, period, that's okay, didn't you follow the black I follow the buck out.
I was like, today I'm not gonna press bye, but tomorrow morning I'm all pressed.
By you better believe the stroke of twelve. I was like, all.
Right, but you should have seen me driving around LA with two miles of gas in my car.
I was like, I can't.
I was like getting where I need to go, like on empty because you couldn't get gas that day.
Now this is the truth.
And you guess somewhere on two miles, like, how much do you want to black out?
I wanted it back, I'd of God, of us, we are changing the world. Yeah, one economic blackout at a time.
Absolutely, you certainly are wor God, what a long time coming.
What a long time coming.
We just so enjoyed having you here.
I want to do this.
You have to come back.
Also, let's hang out without Mike.
So we can really say and we will be the guys. Okay.
So I mean, obviously White Lotus Sunday Nights, where I guess six episodes are out right now we're coming up on that finale. Obviously watch everything that Tasha does because it's the best ever. I mean, we just adore.
Truly happy, no one, no one is more like up in this like the I mean, unfortunately, you're like up on this pedestal. But the thing is you've been up on that pedestal for so long for us, and you have never, ever, ever ever disappointed us. And that's not pressure or anything, it's just pure No, it's just that we love.
You so much.
Ditto, and just know that, like I'm rooting for y'all so heavy, Like everything you touch now or will touch, I'm like, just know that I'm in your corner and for me watching what each of you guys do and how you have come together to like like it's just beautiful to see, especially in the comedy community, that kind of support. And I think that like what you do, I mean, it's it's smart, it's timely, it's needed, and I'm just like, I just want to keep putting a mic to you so that way your voices can continue to be amplified because the world needs you.
Oh my god, that is the kindest thing anyone's ever said. Thank you so much. I mean, this is so meaningful, and I feel we do end every episode with the song, and people have been talking about how they haven't been hearing this enough. But when this theme jumped out in the show. I was like, Okay, I think this is Mike. Why telling us white lotus is about to white lotus. We all know the refrain.
Honey by law of culture reads.
This is the production by Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and I Heart Radio podcasts.
Created and hosted by Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, Executive produced by Anna Hasnier and
Produced by Becker Ramos, Edited, mixed by Duck BABYMNIQLA Board and our music is by Henry Komerski
