<em>Insecure’</em>s Natasha Rothwell on Finding Her Path to Hollywood

Natasha Rothwell was born in Wichita, Kansas, but doesn’t remember much about it. Her father was in the Air Force, so she grew up moving around—to New Mexico, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and even Turkey. “I definitely have wanderlust because of how I grew up,” she says. As an adult, she moved to Tokyo, where she performed at the Tokyo Comedy Store and taught English. She’s had a variety of jobs, including working at McDonald’s, where, on her father’s advice and to her manager’s surprise, she gave two weeks’ notice when she decided to leave.

Rothwell is a producer of HBO’s Insecure, in which she also stars as Kelli. In addition, she’s developing a new show for HBO for which she will be an executive producer and a writer; she’ll also star in that. Before all this, she wrote for Saturday Night Live and performed improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade.

I recently spoke with Rothwell about changing one’s mind about career paths, transferring between colleges, and her career mantras. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for