Natasha Rothwell shared the amusing story of how Sterling K. Brown nearly came between her parents’ marriage.
During a recent Variety Actors on Actors interview, the Insecure actress playfully told Brown that his performance in Army Wives almost wrecked her parents’ long-standing marriage.
“You are so charismatic. You are so easy to watch. You almost broke up my parents’ marriage,” Rothwell joked at the two-minute and 30-second mark in the video linked above. “I just remember being just like, ‘If this n***a come up and ruin years of 47 marriage, I’m gonna be upset.”
Brown laughed before responding, “The older Black women and me, we got a thing. Me and Mrs. Jones.”
“Yeah, I mean you ain’t daddy yet, so hold up,” Rothwell shot back. “It’s Mrs. Rothwell, Mr. Colonel Rothwell.”
The conversation then shifted to their shared backgrounds, with both having military fathers. Rothwell revealed her dad served in the Air Force while Brown disclosed that his father was in the Army and was stationed in Germany during the Vietnam War.
Later in the interview, Brown remembered his first encounter with Rothwell before really getting to know her, describing her as appearing “demure,” “so refined and so elegant.” He also complimented her breakout performance alongside Kelli on HBO’s Insecure, pointing out that she was originally brought on as a writer.
Rothwell backed up the story, explaining, “I thought I made one too many dick jokes and I was getting in trouble. And Issa [Rae]’s producer was like, ‘We want to see you in our office after the work day,’ and I spun out. I remember texting her. I was like, ‘I think I just fucked it up. I messed up,’ and I go in the office and they’re like, ‘You know, we were about to get into auditions for Kelli,’ and in my mind I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll read for them’ or whatever, and they’re like, ‘We want you to be Kelli.’ And I just remember bursting into tears.”
Check out the complete Actors on Actors episode featuring Natasha Rothwell and Sterling K. Brown above.
