Natasha Rothwell

In a world where you graduate with a theater degree from college, you gotta find your bread job. You gotta find that job to pay the bills.

I'm drawn to subversive material and material that speaks to communities and people who tend to be marginalized, and telling those stories in ways that subvert expectations. That's always been fun for me to play and always been fun for me to write.

Black women have earned the right to be basic.

Improv is such a huge part of my background, and a huge part of character discovery is really being inside the character and trying to think through them without the limitations of the script.

I was sort of always the class clown, but I think that was confusing for my teachers because I had the grades to back it up. I would be finished with assignments and goof off, because I'm done. And so, it would be like, 'Oh, she has like a 4.2 GPA, but she's also just like walking around the halls with the hall pass and bothering other students.'

My bread and butter is rom-com, and if I had to go back and tell my 15-year-old self watching 'When Harry Met Sally' that one day I would be writing a film in the same genre, I would have freaked out.

I remember writing monologues and one-act plays and stuff in high school. I had a project in English that was just a short book of limericks. It was so weird. I enjoyed the challenge and rhyme of it. I was always putting on plays and stuff.

I don't know if there is an expiration date on diversity.

I think a caricature is different than a character.

My feet are firmly planted in my political ideology. To me, it's being authentic in every area, and that includes politics.

Being authentic is important to me, and I am not going to present this fluff, fake, sanitized version of myself that doesn't reflect who I am or what my passions and interests are.

I'm interested in stories being told by marginalized voices and, specifically, people of color.