Life & Work with Natalie Darden

Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Darden.

Hi Natalie, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I definitely didn’t think I was going to be creating sketch comedy videos when I first moved out to LA. I had just graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in Neuroscience and Theatre, and I for sure thought I would be pursuing medical school afterward. Smash cut to eight years later, and I’m making silly sketches about tipping your juicer, sassy FedEx drivers, Emotional Support Humans, and girlfriend meltdowns over getting Folgers coffee instead of Starbucks.

I took as many acting classes as I could when I came out here, and I tried to just follow what I “should” be doing. I got the manager, the agent, the credits from acting teachers that were “well-received” 10 years ago by titans in the industry. And I became readily accustomed to dumping hundreds on changing my headshots and demo reel whenever I turned over new representation – because when you’re in actress in LA, that’s just the thing you do. When the excitement of being signed with a completely “new look” dwindled, I found myself back in Groundhog Day: 0 callbacks, 0 pins, 0 avails. I became so tired and broke from this repetitive process, and truly, I wanted to give up. I wanted so badly just to have someone in my corner.

And then, I was asked to write a sketch for a comedy show.

I had taken improv before at Upright Citizens Brigade, and I was truly unremarkable in it. But I guess my friend Megan James saw something I didn’t and convinced me to write a comedy sketch for her sketch show, Lady Bits. Something about watching people perform jokes that you wrote eliciting pure happiness from the audience made me understand my new calling in the industry that nobody else had control over: writing my own funny s%$# and making the videos with my own team.

Sure these weren’t amazing PAID co-star and guest star roles that you always pine after on your friends’ instagram stories. (“Look mom, I’m on TV! #Paramountlot #blessed #dreamsdocometrue #slaying.”) But these videos were and ARE something so special to me because of the sheer joy I get from doing them. Micah, Matthew, and I – we ARE the auditioning room, the writer’s room, the editing room. Start to finish, we make these videos without ever needing to change our headshots or demo reels for approval.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There’s always so many struggles in the industry that I feel like a lot of people do a REALLLLL good job concealing on social media. For one, I’ve been working a bartending gig for the last nine years, 40 hours a week, just to pay bills and provide health insurance. The struggles of maintaining your image – working out, eating well, taking care of yourself – those pressures all wait for you daily when you wake up and follow you throughout the day. But then of course, you need to maintain relationships, friendships, partnerships too on top of this because those are so important, and then somehow you need to fit in the acting classes to stay on top of your craft. Then, THEN, in that sliver of time on the weekend when you have NOTHING to worry about, you need to finally film that scene you wrote and prepare for that. It’s like the food pyramid, and in the ideal world, the large base at the bottom should just be your craft every single day. But life happens, no one is perfect, and I really feel like the people who stick around every day and give it 110% despite everything are warriors in the industry.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’ve always loved drama, but my focus in the last eight years has been on comedy. I started taking improv classes at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade and realized how much I loved harping on the “unusual thing” in a scene. I apply that heavily to my comedy sketches along with “raising the stakes” and “if this is true, what else is true?” I’ve also always appreciated how the start of every scene seemingly comes from a very stable baseline: people are normal. No one is showing up with weird accents or TRYING to be funny. Because that’s usually how interactions and people are in real life and relationships. We don’t REALLY know people until time has passed. More often than not, I have seen those “crazy character” scenes fall flat on their faces because if the energy starts high, the only way to go is down, and painting crazy on crazy is like painting blue on blue. It just doesn’t show up.

I love emotions and feelings to be earned in a scene. I strive so hard for this in my writing, acting, and directing. More often than not, I enjoy playing straight characters in scenes to react off of other CRAZIER people, like Micah. I know if I give Micah a funny character, Micah will by nature hit it out of the park, and it’s my job to highlight his absurdity. This is why I’ve always thought we’ve worked really well together. (I will literally laugh when I’m writing roles for him because I will see his face performing them, and I just lose it.)

These kinds of interactions that have performed really well online are in sketches like “Sorry We Missed You” and “Squeezed Juicery”. The one comment from viewers I love reading across these sketches is: “What show is this from?” That, to me, means that we did our job. If people can see these little clips as a part of a bigger show on television and want MORE, then we have effectively created engaging characters and a world worth watching. And this is SUCH a struggle for comedy shows today.

What’s next?
I’m gonna create these comedy sketches until either me, Matthew, or Micah dies, but I hope and manifest that we will get paid to do this in our careers before then. I just know that as long as we continue doing these skits, we are just going to get better and better at them. My ultimate hope and dream is to create an ensemble comedy show with grounded, awkward, cringeworthy humor, like the Office, Parks and Recreation, or Always Sunny. I’m also looking forward to bringing a comedy pilot I wrote to life with my team.

All I know is I’m just so lucky and fortunate to have Matthew and Micah in my corner.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nataliedarden/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NatalieDarden
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@nataliedarden

Image Credits
Matthew Valich