Natalie Morales has been in everything good. The actress and comedian is making a career out of distinct and hilarious characters in all your favorite TV shows and movies, and 2017 is about to be her biggest year yet. She sat down with Cosmopolitan.com to share some memories from set, including stories about the super-famous folks she works with on the regular, and her tales did not disappoint.
Making History
The show, which premiered March 5 on Fox, follows three time-traveling friends from two different centuries. Morales stars alongside Leighton Meester and Adam Pally.
"Everyone on this show is incredible! I was a fan of Leighton from Gossip Girl ... she has this amazing ability to do anything and make you fall in love with her. She has perfect bone structure in her face and this sweetness underlying everything that she does. All of my scenes with her are great. The show is filled with people with improv backgrounds, so there's a lot of improv happening, and I don't think Leighton came from a UCB-type world, but she certainly keeps up like she does."
Powerless
"I had some scenes with Vanessa Hudgens and she would just stand there and tap dance between takes. I'd be like, 'Oh! You're actually a triple threat!' She's walking around humming something, and it's the most beautiful singing voice you've ever heard. I'm like, 'You're like an old-school movie star, you can do it all. This is so impressive.'"
Trophy Wife
The ABC show, starring Malin Akerman, Marcia Gay Harden, Bradley Whitford, Michaela Watkins, and more was canceled after one season in 2014.
"That was one of the best experiences of my life, because that whole cast and crew was so amazing. I'm still friends with everybody. We still hang out. Michaela Watkins watches my dog when I go out of town. We're all really tight, and that was a super-fun experience that I wish would have lasted a little longer."
Santa Clarita Diet
The first season of this dark comedy, about a working mom (Drew Barrymore) who becomes a flesh-eating zombie, is now on Netflix.
"It was so great to work with such phenomenal people on this one. Timothy Olyphant played my boyfriend on The Grinder, which is an absurd sentence, I know. He is amazing. Also, I love working with Drew Barrymore. Drew is awesome. I don't know how you are in show business from the time you are born and are a normal person, but she is. Not only a normal person, but a delightfully wonderful one."
The Grinder
The show, starring Rob Lowe and Fred Savage, was canceled after one season in 2016.
"We shot 90 percent of this show in the conference room set and sometimes we would sit there between takes while they fixed the camera set-ups, and I would do crossword puzzles with Fred Savage. Sometimes I would just look up at him and be like, 'Oh my God, you're Kevin from The Wonder Years and now I'm doing a crossword puzzle with you!' You know kinda how he just has the exact same face? A little taller and a little older, but pretty much just Kevin."
BoJack Horseman
The animated show's fourth season will premiere on Netflix this summer.
"I do a few different characters in the upcoming season. I recorded all my stuff separately, so I'm not with anyone else — I was in the booth with the creator of the show, Raphael [Bob-Waksberg], and he would sometimes read me the line before mine, just to cue me or read me in. Then they cut it all together. There are all these completely different versions of my lines, and I won't know what they use at all until I see the actual show."
Girls
The HBO show is now in its final season. Morales played Desi's girlfriend, Clementine, in season three.
"Oh man, Girls was such a dream. I think that my favorite part of that show was watching Lena direct, watching Lena interact with her crew and her actors, and act in it, and direct in it ... I would just sit back and stare at her and go like, 'How do you keep this all together and do it so well?' She's stated very publicly that she struggles with endometriosis and a lot of the time, she was in so much pain, and it's so incredible to see how she's still this tornado of goodness, a very organized tornado, that gets everything done."
Battle of the Sexes
This is an upcoming movie about the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, starring Emma Stone and Steve Carrell.
"The directors [Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris] gave us a mixtape of songs from the '70s to get us in the mood. I play Rosie Casals who, in real life, was Billie Jean King's very, very, very frequent opponent, but they were [also] best friends at the time, [and] she was [Billie's] doubles partner right when Billie was coming out. The funniest thing is the costuming is so real, down to the bras and underwear, because the panty lines and bra lines matter. I had to wear super uncomfortable bras! And no, I don't know how to play tennis. I played tennis with my dad sometime once when I was 12, and I got a cramp in my neck and I just never played again. You'll notice in the movie that I've either just played tennis or am about to play."
Budding Prospects
This is Amazon’s new comedy, based on the 1990 novel of the same name, about three guys from San Francisco who head north to grow marijuana in the early 1980s.
"Out of all the things I got to do last year, Budding Prospects was perhaps the most exciting for one singular reason: My best friend and comedy soul mate, Cyrina Fiallo, got cast in it too! We both randomly got roles in this very special show and got to hang out in San Francisco, and it was a literal dream. We've worked together a lot but never where someone else hired us! We hire ourselves."
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