The White Lotus’ Natasha Rothwell on the 'angsty' music that shaped her

Natasha Rothwell [00:00:04] I'm gonna leave this podcast and just fall in love with the next man I see, so you're welcome to whoever that is. 

Sophie Bearman [00:00:23] This is Life in Seven Songs from the San Francisco Standard. I'm your host, Sophie Bearman. My guest this week is actor, writer, and creator, Natasha Rothwell. You've seen her as Belinda in The White Lotus, you've laughed with her as Kelli in Insecure, and you've possibly caught her in Sonic the Hedgehog? The kids sure did. And in 2024, Natasha truly stepped into her own with How to Die Alone, a TV comedy series that she created and starred in. The plot centers on Mel, a down-on-her-luck woman working at JFK Airport who's afraid of flying, has never been in love, and who — after a near-death experience — decides to take control of her life and center herself. The show won an Independent Spirit Award. It's funny, it's personal, and it's inspired by Natasha's own story. Natasha Rothwell, welcome to the show. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:01:16] Thank you for having me. 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:18] So Natasha, you've said you have a quote on your wall. 'Be so good they can't ignore you.' Tell me about that. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:01:25] It's a Steve Martin quote, and I am very self-aware and noticed that there are a lot of things in the world and society and how people view me and the preconceived notions people have about women, about black women, about plus size women, that I was up against it in terms of having people see me. And it's a huge part of a lot of the projects that I do is about that visibility and wanting to be seen. When I found this quote, it reminded me kind of the futility of trying to get people to pay attention by convincing them with words. It was much more effective to let my work speak and that allowed me to focus my energy in a way that grew me as an artist instead of depleting me as a person to try to be like, 'Listen to me,' you know? That, to me, was exhausting, and I did that for a long time. And that quote was just like, 'You know what? There are gonna be people that are gonna not see you. Just keep your eyes on your own paper and do the work.' 

Sophie Bearman [00:02:39] I knew there was a story there, but that is just so beautifully said. So thank you for sharing that. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:02:43] Of course. 

Sophie Bearman [00:02:43] I'm curious, what were some of those preconceived notions that you experienced as a kid? Like any stories that stick with you?

Natasha Rothwell [00:02:50] They're kind of too numerous to count. I mean, I was an Air Force brat, so I moved around a lot. I went to two high schools, two middle schools, two elementary schools. And very quickly I caught onto the fact that as a black woman — black girl at the time — arriving, people would be like, assuming I listened to certain songs or I was supposed to dress a certain way. And I thought I was Angela Chase for my so-called life. I was very like angsty. But it was just like, no one understood that persona on a black girl. Like I would wear flannel, you know, trying to be grunge and they'd think I was, you now, Left Eye from TLC. I'm like, 'No, they both wear flannel, but I'm doing it for the other reason.' And I was like, 'Oh, people have a very specific idea of who I'm supposed to be to them, how I fit into their narrative.' And there's so many, you know, images of black people in media that tell the world at large who we are, and we're not a monolith. And so, a lot of my experience and my upbringing was trying to white knuckle who I was and not adopt what other people thought I was supposed to be. 

Sophie Bearman [00:04:03] You chose a song, Riverside by Kirk Franklin and the Family. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:04:07] Yes. 

Sophie Bearman [00:04:08] So let's talk a little bit about your family. Before we get to that, just tell me a little more about growing up. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:04:13] Yeah, I'm one of four. I have two sisters and a brother, and my parents are, magically, still married and very much in love and just celebrated 47 years. And the military upbringing really made us a close unit. And we also grew up in the church and gospel was just, you know, commonplace in my house being played. And my parents were very careful about what music they exposed us to when I was coming up, until I got ahold of the reins and I did what I wanted. But Kirk Franklin was something played in the house. And the song in particular speaks to my penchant for rock because there's this like hard pivot towards the end of the song where it just gets really kind of like heavy metal with it. And I loved that so much as a kid because I'm like, 'Oh!' It's this weird hybrid of like —

Sophie Bearman [00:05:05] Yes! 

Natasha Rothwell [00:05:06] Two parts of my identity, you know? 

Music [00:05:16] [Riverside by Kirk Franklin and the Family plays] 

Natasha Rothwell [00:05:17] It's so, like, saucy. There's so much stank in it, and it's just, like a vibe. And I don't know about you, but like, when songs just go places that are unexpected, it's just the — it delights me to no end. 

Sophie Bearman [00:05:31] So, Natasha, you have three siblings. How would you describe your role in the family? Or even, how would they describe you? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:05:39] Ooh, that's a great question. I'm a Libra. And I'm the only Libra in the house. And I try to maintain harmony and balance, and I'm big on vibes, and trying to be the peacemaker all the time, and trying fix, which can be exhausting. I think if you were my — they would be like, She's exhausting.' But I'm like, 'No, it's coming from a good place.' And yeah, when I was younger, I was a huge people pleaser. Like, I'm recovering from that. Thank God for therapy. I'm understanding my neuro-spiciness now more as an adult than I did then, but I'm very hypersensitive to feelings and environments. I almost sense it before the person does, where I'm like, 'Oh, they had a bad day at school,' so maybe they want a piece of my candy, or like, 'You can have the remote.' And so I was constantly trying to take care of everyone and make sure everyone was good. And I do that then in some ways now that are a little less annoying. 

Sophie Bearman [00:06:31] You mentioned growing up, moving a ton, I mean I think I read New Mexico, Florida, Illinois, Turkey. How did that nomadic childhood shape you? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:06:40] It's interesting, I think that it's all I know. So sometimes people are like, 'Didn't you wish it was different?' I was like, 'Well, I didn't know different.' But I do think that I didn't really know who I was until college, maybe even right after college, when I was just like, 'I gotta figure out who I am.' Because so much of who I was was the version of myself I was auditioning at any given military base or any given school I was in. And being such a reader of people, I could show up as the new student and instantly clock, in the cafeteria, 'Those are the cool kids, those are the nerds, those are jocks.' And like literally change who I was based on how could I fit in, how could land with as much ease as possible. And it was kind of exacerbated by the fact that I've always performed. And probably not surprisingly, because so much of my upbringing was about performing versions of myself at all of the places I lived, it's also very real that at every school I went to, the most accepting community was the theater department. It was all the freaks, geeks, and weirdos. So it was just like, 'Okay, so I'm with these people,' and I'm trying on all of these different personas as a theater kid and a theater nerd, and then I'm doing it in a non-performative way on stage, but just in life. So I just felt exhausted by performance by the time I got to college. I was just like, 'Well, who am I? Like, who do I want to be?' Like, if it's not trying to get friends and avoid being picked on, who would that person be? And I didn't really stop and think about that until then. 

Sophie Bearman [00:08:19] So your next song takes us to college years. You chose Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon. How come? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:08:26] So to date myself, Napster had just come on the scene. And I loved jazz. And I was like, 'oh, this is a, this is a program that I can use to really dig into things.' So I would like listen to a Miles Davis track and then I would know who played the piano. And then I'd be like, 'Okay, Thelonious Monk, let me get into him.' And I would just go in these deep dives about jazz. And then that led me to like big band, swing era music and classical and jazz standards. And then the Big E's, you know, you have Ella Fitzgerald and Etta James and Eartha Kitt. And I was like, 'Ooh, the three E's.' I'm like, 'Who else?' And then I also loved like old school film and Sinatra and the Rat Pack. And so it all kind of dovetailed from that time in my life in college when I was so insufferable where I was trying to be a little, a jazz aficionado. 

Music [00:09:22] [Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra plays]

Natasha Rothwell [00:09:41] This song, specifically, it swells in a way that just makes me — I blast it still, like, it comes on my playlist and it's just everything. It just fills a room and fills my heart. 

Sophie Bearman [00:09:52] You studied journalism in college, at least for a little bit. How did you decide to change to theater? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:09:57] I knew I wanted to act, and when it came time to major, I think I manufactured, in a true dramatic way, this crisis of like, 'My parents are not gonna let me major in theater in college, and I have to pick something that's like, makes sense,' and because I'd done creative writing in high school, and loved it, wrote for the school newspaper and all that kind of stuff, I was like, 'I'll do journalism,' and my justification, I shit you not, it was Oprah. Because she did journalism and she acted. And I was like, 'Okay, if Oprah can do both, then I can do both.' And I majored in journalism, did it for a whole year at Ithaca College. And it was so oppressive, the AP style, and just like the rigidity of journalism. And I wanted more freedom. And I remember I had a professor, it was just like, 'You can't just take all of these creative liberties with the truth.' And I'm like, 'But I want to.' And I remember I saw a performance of House of Blue Leaves, I think it's called. And in the program, they had a poem, A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes. And he talks about, you know, does it explode? Does it shrivel like a raisin in the sun? It's about having a dream. And if you don't express it, it could shrivel up and die. And so it just, yeah, it brought me to tears because I was like, 'I have this dream I'm deferring because I'm trying to make my parents happy.' And then I came out to my parents as a thespian. They're like, 'No, we know that you're an actor.' Like, and they were so supportive. They're like, 'We were confused about the journalism thing but we wanted you to be happy.'

Sophie Bearman [00:11:34] It was all internal. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:11:35] It was so internal. I was trying to make my own afterschool special. I was just very, very drama. 

Sophie Bearman [00:11:40] Okay, so eventually you moved to New York and you're doing improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade. What did improv ignite in you? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:11:48] Freedom. Oh my God. It was therapy before I got into therapy. It was freedom of expression. The whole premise is, you know, 'Yes, and,' it's 'Follow the fear.' It's the complete antithesis of this sort of like rigidity of the religious upbringing I had. And saying yes to yourself and the first thought being the right thought. 

Sophie Bearman [00:12:11] I love that. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:12:12] It was so foreign to, like, a people pleaser. It's just like it's 'Your first thought's not the right thought. You have to sit down and weigh it and make sure everyone likes it and then do it.' But with improv, it was just like, 'Yes and amen.' I was in a state of flow when I did it. 

Sophie Bearman [00:12:26] You chose a song, Oh My God by Jay-Z, that you described as your hype song on the way to improv shows. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:12:33] Yes. 

Sophie Bearman [00:12:33] Tell me about that. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:12:35] So, being in New York, where I really sort of cut my comedy teeth, I did a lot of walking as you do as a New Yorker. And so my headphones were always my safe place and I would score everything I did, and still to this day do. And that song was like such a like, 'Let's go, let's on the stage and let it ride!' And it just has this amazing kind of like build built into it. There's this fearlessness in the song and you need that in improv. So yeah, I definitely use this as my hype song more than once, many times. 

Music [00:13:11] [Oh My God by Jay-Z plays]

Natasha Rothwell [00:13:26] It's scoring me, like, running to catch the train, stopping the doors before they close. I'm, like, jumping over a puddle of who knows what and, like, there's all of this kind of like, it feels like you're a character in a video game. You know what I mean? Of just like, 'Oh, I'm going through something hard but I'm gonna come up on top,' you know? And it has that gospel in it too so it, like, scratches that itch. And so yeah, it's a fun one. 

Sophie Bearman [00:13:50] So landing a role on Insecure was such a turning point. What did being part of that show mean for your career, your life? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:13:58] Without a doubt changed my life. I started on the show as a writer. I had no idea I would even be on camera. It was a really full circle moment when Issa and Prentice came up to me about Kelli and them wanting me to play her. I didn't audition for her, so they were just like, 'You're her.' And I was like, 'What? What do you mean?' But I was just, like, floored at the opportunity and learned so much from Issa and Prentice and Prentice is the co-show runner with Issa. And I think it was also so affirming to be in a room with someone who saw all parts of me. I went in with blinders on. I was like, 'I'm writing on this show and nothing else.' And Issa and Prentice were like, 'We know you do all the things,' you know? Like, I had a Netflix special. They knew I wrote for SNL. So they knew I was multi-hyphenate, but I didn't grow up in an era where that was a thing. You had to pick a lane. 

Sophie Bearman [00:14:53] And what does it mean to you to play Kelli? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:14:55] Oh, I... I love her fierce. She taught me so much about me. She's the antithesis of who I am in real life. My idea of a good Friday night is like the New York Times crossword and maybe The Office on loop and, like, maybe some edibles? That's the Venn diagram of me and Kelli, maybe we both partake. But she's stronger than I am. She's braver than I am. She's fearless in a way that I just didn't know how to be at the time I was playing her. And so to put her on for five seasons... It changed me. It eroded those parts of me that were afraid in a lot of ways. And it was just such a treat to be able to live in her and so many people, particularly plus size women, and especially, you know, women of color would come up to me and just be gracious and, you know, have gratitude about being seen and feeling seen. And that just changed my life. 

Sophie Bearman [00:15:55] It's time for a quick break. When we come back, Natasha lands the role of a lifetime. Stay with us. 

Sophie Bearman [00:16:20] So I want to talk about your TV series, How to Die Alone. This is a comedy about a late bloomer who realizes she's been living her life for other people. Sounds familiar. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:16:30] Yeah. 

Sophie Bearman [00:16:30] And decides to finally put herself first. So that was you, pretty much, in your twenties and thirties, or a part of you. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:16:37] Oh, very much. Like, I often say that that show is a love letter to that unhealed version of myself, and wanting to give her a platform so that way other people don't feel as alone as I felt at the time, making bad decisions and not feeling good enough. And it is the most vulnerable piece of art I've put into the world to date. And I'm so glad that it had a chance to exist. I'm, of course, sad that it's no longer on the air, but I think it's still doing good things for people. I get messages all the time being like, 'I just found your show and I loved it. And, you know, I am gonna take that trip.' And it's just wonderful to be able to hear those things and to have put Mel into the world. 

Sophie Bearman [00:17:22] So, Mel, she gets into an accident, which is the moment where she's sort of like, 'I almost died, I need to change my life.' And that, something similar happened to you. Can you tell that story? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:17:32] Yeah, you take creative license. We have her in the show, she gets bonked on the head by an Ikea wardrobe and you know she's just like, she's like, 'I need to fix my shit.' But when I moved to LA, I was still broke as fuck and I had taken some Advil or Motrin, I think, and I'm kind of allergic to NSAIDs. But I had dental work done and I was in so much pain I was like, 'You know, what I'll just take some Advil.' Worst idea. I hitch out and like my face is swollen and I ended up going to Cedars Urgent Care, which I do not recommend. Ceders is incredible, but urgent care generally on a Friday night is not where you wanna be in LA. And yeah, they had to give me a little epi shot in my butt and they asked me, they're like, 'Do you have anyone to take you home?' And I didn't and I was just like, 'Oh my God. I have no one to reach out to in this moment.' And it wasn't for the fact that I had just moved to LA. I was two months into the writer's room here. I could have called someone, but I was scared to ask for help. And I was like, 'There's a show.' There's a show at the intersection of loneliness and feeling alone. 

Sophie Bearman [00:18:40] In the TV show, Mel, she's also never been in love, right? And is that part of her storyline also inspired by your own experiences? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:18:48] Oh, yeah, yeah. I have loved, I have been loved, but I have not been in love. I'm a hopeless romantic, and I think that rom-coms and Disney had done their share in poisoning my POV of what love is supposed to look like, and I do think my parents, who are deeply in love and in it for 47 years, which is an anomaly, it can skew how you expect things to play out, and so I'm no longer existing in this bubble of what I think it should look like. But I also know now what I deserve. And so it's an interesting intersection where I'm open to love, but I'm no longer hunting it for sport like I was in my twenties where I was like, 'I must have this or I'm not alive. I haven't really lived.' It's like, 'No, I'm living a wonderful, robust life.' I'm happy, you know, from the inside out. And love would be an amazing addition to the roster that is my life. Romantic love, that is. But I also am so hyper aware of all the kinds of love that are in my life as a consequence of making the show actually, of just what love I had been missing because I was looking for one kind that I thought was the one that I needed to, like, finish my passport of being a human. And it's like, no, there's familial love, there's love of my siblings and my dogs. And like, I'm now feeling the fullness of my life, which is, I think, what is the most important thing. 

Sophie Bearman [00:20:14] You chose Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing. Tell me about that. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:20:19] This song, this song is about big feelings. And I feel like when you are crushing and when the text comes in and your heart flutters and like you find yourself, 'Ooh, I'm gonna see him today. So I'm going to put on a little more makeup,' and, 'Ooh, I really love my legs in this dress. So I gonna wear that,' you know. There's all of these kinds of things that, like, get you ready for those big feelings to be stoked. And I feel like this song is just, like, throwing — I don't know, gasoline on the fire, and it's about want and longing and it hits different, this song. 

Music [00:20:56] [I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston plays]

Natasha Rothwell [00:21:13] I'm going to leave this podcast and just fall in love with the next man I see. So you're welcome to whoever that is. This is like Simp City, USA. I'm like S-I-M-P. It's like, you turn simple because a guy is or like a girl or whatever is just like making you in your feelings and you would do anything for them. And it just turns you into this — if you didn't have a crush on them, everything they do would be cringe. But because you have a crush on them, you're just melting. You're like, 'He has spinach in his teeth. Isn't that cute?' This is when I am, like, in my feels. Again, I'm a Libra, so I crush a lot on literally anything. I could crush on this microphone. I crush on everything. But this song, I actually have a playlist on my Spotify called Simpshit, which is, like, when I'm ready just to get my crush on. And this is on the list — like, it's in the playlist multiple times because —

Sophie Bearman [00:22:10] Oh my god. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:22:10] You got to return it, you know what I mean? You listen to it and then you dip your toes in it and then it comes back on, you're like, 'Yes!' It's so good for, like, crushing and falling in love. Ugh.

Sophie Bearman [00:22:20] Okay, so you have another song about love and this one is You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:22:25] Oh, see, this one is — yeah, it's on the reverse side of love. It's like after you've gone through Simp City and you realize, 'Was I really thinking that I wasn't worthy of this person?' It's a song about realizing your worth. And it's also one of my favorite songs to karaoke. I karaoke all the time. 

Sophie Bearman [00:22:46] Ooh. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:22:46] It's my favorite sport. And this one is, like, you can really get your lungs going with it. And I think, again, having gone in and out of crushes and dating guys who didn't realize my worth, there's a fiery sort of like self-righteousness to the song that I just, I love. 

Music [00:23:11] [You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette plays]

Natasha Rothwell [00:23:35] It's so good. That whole album, Jack and the Little Pill, came out when I was in high school and I lost my mind. Like every single song I played to no end and it is that kind of like angsty female rage that felt so illicit. Like you're not allowed to express this, like, anger and she just like tapped into it. 

Sophie Bearman [00:23:59] It's interesting how you mentioned you'd experienced that feeling as a kid, like people didn't fully see or appreciate you, what you wore, the music you listened to, and then the men you dated sort of similarly. Do you still feel that way? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:24:11] No, because it's like barking up the wrong tree. It's exhausting to be, like, wanting someone to want you just because they don't, you know what I mean? It's almost being drawn to the rejection because it is a challenge to try to convince someone to look your way. And now, I'm deeply disinterested in convincing anyone of my worth. I know who I am, and that's something I didn't know then. And so much of that kind of like wanting to be seen and wanting someone to co-sign my existence. Was because I hadn't even considered that I needed to do that myself. And that's the consequence of therapy, is being like, 'Oh, fuck, do I want to be with me? Who am I? And like, can I fall in love with myself?' And I think that's also the comedy of the question of like, 'Have you ever been in love?' Romantically, no, but I have fallen deeply in love with myself. And that has been the best part of my journey thus far. 

Sophie Bearman [00:25:08] I've been thinking about how you're in this really interesting moment. You're everyone's favorite character on this mega hit show, truly, White Lotus. You won this incredible award for How to Die Alone, it's this deeply personal project, but then you're also navigating the loss of that project and, you know, it was canceled after the first season. So I'm curious, what does this chapter feel like for you right now? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:25:31] Unlike anything I could have ever prepped for. You know, it's bittersweet in terms of How to Die Alone. And I'm probably the most famous I've ever been in my life right now. And that also is weird. Particularly because I'm a nerd about acting and the craft and writing and all of that. So like, fame and recognition have never been in my crosshairs. So it's a consequence of good work, which I think Steve Martin very much knew, but I didn't realize I'm like, 'Oh yeah. When you do work, they can't ignore you. They pay attention.' And it's like, 'Oh wow, I'm being seen a lot right now.' So yeah, it's interesting. I wasn't prepared, I think, for this particular moment in my life, but I'm so grateful to be here. And I'm navigating it the best that I can, but I love what I do for a living. I really, really do. 

Sophie Bearman [00:26:21] So in season three of White Lotus, you're still playing Belinda, but she's different this time. No spoilers, but, she's less, you know, self-sacrificing. She's putting herself first. Does that feel like you're kind of in that arc somehow as well? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:26:34] Oh, yeah, I think there's an echo between her journey and mine. I think she might be a little behind in terms of choosing herself and being unapologetic. I think I went through that phase, thank God, and am on the other side of that. At times, it was painful to return to that version of myself by playing Belinda because she is such a people pleaser and everything she does vocationally she gives of herself, she gives to her son. She puts herself last. And so to revisit that through Belinda was a reminder of how far I came. And there's definitely symmetry in who she is and who I am. I think that's why I'm so protective of her. 

Sophie Bearman [00:27:19] Your next song comes from the musical, Waitress, which is a story about a woman who's a waitress in an abusive marriage. She feels trapped and she finds a way out through baking and entering a pie contest. Why does this show have such a hold on you? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:27:34] It — one, I'm a musical theater nerd. I've seen the show twice in New York, once in Ireland, which was a fun one. And it's fundamentally sort of a story of a woman finding her own agency in her life. And I super relate to that. And this song, specifically, she is realizing how far she's walked away from herself. I mean, it's beautifully written. Sara Bareilles is just a weapon when it comes to writing. And yeah, it was an emotional production, but I just super relate to this song of seeing who you are and seeing who you wanna be and trying to close the distance between the two. 

Music [00:28:24] [She Used to Be Mine by Sara Bareilles plays]

Natasha Rothwell [00:28:51] I love the show. It's so simple and also I loved the movie of the same name. Very famously worked at Blockbuster when I was in high school and a little bit in college and I would rent it all the time. Because it's obviously not a musical but just the film itself tells the same story of that kind of like, 'I'm gonna live my life on my terms,' type of thing. 

Sophie Bearman [00:29:13] Did you meet Sara? You spoke to her even back then, or there's some story around that, right? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:29:20] Yeah, we both went to a silent meditation retreat together. And the intro to the retreat, we could talk. And I didn't tell her until afterwards how much I was just in awe of her. And I just had to meditate silently alongside. And I'm just like, 'Focus, focus on finding your center.' And I'm like, 'She's right there.'

Sophie Bearman [00:29:43] How very White Lotus of you both. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:29:46] Very much. Very — oh my god. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. 

Sophie Bearman [00:29:49] So, Natasha, your last song, it's Coldplay's Fix You. Why'd you choose this one? 

Natasha Rothwell [00:29:56] I saw Coldplay perform this, I think it was 2007. I went to the Fuji Rock Festival in Tokyo. I was living in Japan at the time, and I went this massive rock festival alone, and I was bopping around all these stages, and I'd never seen Coldplay live. And I was a fan of some of their songs, but I never was, like, listening to whole albums at the time, if that makes sense, but like whichever one kind of popped up through the Top 40, I listened to. And they opened — not opened, but they shared the stage — with Alicia Keys, which is why it was there. I loved her. And so I was like, 'Oh yeah, I'll watch Coldplay and maybe they'll sing a song I know.' And I was in church, to bring it back to church. It was such a cathartic experience to watch them play live. And when this song came on, I felt like my soul left my body because it was just, it was beautiful. And it's about, like, wanting to fix people, which as a people pleaser, it's like our anthem of like wanting to make someone better and knowing they can be better. And it just pulled on my heart. 

Music [00:31:14] [Fix You by Coldplay plays]

Natasha Rothwell [00:31:35] It's just so pure of like, yeah, wanting to make people better. And I do think that, like, as much as I am a recovering people pleaser, that part of compassion is just like, it's my default setting, it's factory setting. So that part won't change. And I think it still speaks to that. It's not the negative form of people pleasing. It's like rooting for someone. 

Sophie Bearman [00:32:03] Well, thank you so much for sharing your seven songs, this has been so fun. 

Natasha Rothwell [00:32:07] Oh, amazing. Thank you so much for having me. I'm going to be singing these for the rest of the day. 

Sophie Bearman [00:32:12] Oh, good. 

Sophie Bearman [00:32:38] Life in Seven Songs is a production from the San Francisco Standard. If you liked Natasha's episode, you might enjoy hearing from another late bloomer, the actor-turned-musician Rita Wilson. Check it out. Our senior producer is Jasmyn Morris. Our producers are Michelle Lanz, who also mixes the show, and Tessa Kramer. Our theme music is by Kate Davis and Zubin Hensler. Clark Miller created our show art. Our music consultant is Sarah Tembeckjian. Executive producers are Griffin Gaffney, Jon Steinberg, and me. As always, you can find this guest's full playlist at sf.news/spotify. I'm Sophie Bearman. Thank you for listening, and see you next time.