Bashir Salahuddin Finds the Humanity in ‘How to Die Alone’s ‘Scoundrel’

Whether they know it or not, statistically everyone who saw a film released in 2022 knows the work of Bashir Salahuddin — or, as he was known in the year’s #2 movie Top Gun: Maverick, Navy Warrant Officer Bernie “Hondo” Coleman. But comedy fans have been steeping in Salahuddin’s career for a decade. He was a writer and sometime performer on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon before his acting career took off with roles like Malik in HBO’s dramedy Looking, Netflix’s prematurely canceled GLOW and the scripted true-crime series The Dropout, among many others. 

You may also know Salahuddin as the headliner of his own shows: with Diallo Riddle, Salahuddin co-created the Soul Train spoof Sherman’s Showcase, in which he played the titular variety show host Sherman McDaniel; and South Side, a Max import from Comedy Central that depicts the eponymous Chicago neighborhood — of which Salahuddin is a favorite son — in all its fractious complexity. 

Last week, Salahuddin débuted on Hulu’s new dramedy How to Die Alone. Among the many questionable decisions of Mel (Natasha Rothwell, who also created the show) is putting her older brother Brian (Salahuddin) down on her hospital paperwork as a co-signer on a bill she’s not sure how she’s going to pay. And while Brian is, thus, a victim of identity theft, he’s also a perpetrator in his own right. The first time we see him, he’s on a date with a woman who’s not his wife. The simmering tensions between Brian and Mel come to a head in this week’s “Trust No One.” Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Brian and his wife Sarah (Rebecca Marshall) gives Brian and Mel’s mother Beverly (Ellen Cleghorne) plenty of opportunity to praise her son at the expense of her less impressively employed daughter, and the daughter-in-law who, instead of cooking the sides herself, dared to procure them from Boston Market.

Earlier this week, I talked to Salahuddin via Zoom about making Brian more than his infidelities; what he’s brought from Jimmy Fallon’s show to his own; and which Simpsons episodes he loves best.

The boyfriends and husbands that you’ve played on TV have ranged from pretty good to perfect. Where would you put Brian on the spectrum of romantic partners that you've played?

I never thought about that. One of the first guys I played was on GLOW, and that guy was so sweet.

Looking, another great one.

Oh my God, that's right. Oh, that was such a fun show. 

Because Natasha Rothwell has put so much of her life, so much of her soul into this show, in some ways Brian is one of the realest characters that I’ve ever played. He is complicated, he is funny to some, he is funny to himself. He is a bit of a scoundrel, obviously. He is, in some ways, very selfish and self-centered, but also, once you meet his mom, and once you see the level of expectation that’s placed on him, you start to realize that his moments of selfishness, and his moments of, in some ways, not being a bigger person, stem directly from insecurities that he has around what he was supposed to be, what he was supposed to do, even who he was supposed to marry. I’m so grateful to Natasha for creating a rich and layered and textured character, and then letting me inhabit it. 

I did a film recently called Miller’s Girl. Some people were like, “Ooh, it’s so spicy. It’s a little inappropriate. It’s this and it’s that.” I was like, “As an actor, you want that stuff. You want to play the hard part.” Like you said, I think it’s certainly not easy to play a very supportive person, because many of us have no experience with that in real life. That’s a challenge. But also, playing somebody who has this level of complexity, and in some ways humanity, is also very challenging, and I’m so thankful that they let me inhabit this character. Definitely, on the significant other scale, this guy, he’s probably not even top five.

The Thanksgiving episode has to establish a lot about Brian’s family with very little screen time. What rehearsal opportunities did you get with the great Ellen Cleghorne and the great Natasha Rothwell?

That’s just the thing, we actually were allowed rehearsal. Tiffany (Johnson) was our director, she is outstanding, but that was the thing. Ordinarily with stuff like this, even with big projects, it’s very rare to have real time carved out for real rehearsal, just because of the schedules. The schedules are usually so crazy. Most TV shows don’t shoot in order, and it’s hard to inhabit that. The Thanksgiving episode is like a play. It feels like a play that was then turned into a TV episode. It’s very set in the world that it’s in, and the places that we shoot it feel like very lived-in places. It feels like a very lived-in house, a very lived-in bar.

As I read it, I’m an old theater guy, I was doing back flips: “Oh my God, I get to do some work that feels like being on stage.” It feels like Mamet, or Shakespeare even. For me, that was incredible. And then they were like, “We’re going to have rehearsal,” and I was like, “Yes.” I really tried to really bring my A-game. I really tried to honor the work by being as prepared as possible, and I think it showed. When Natasha and I were able to do our work together, when Ellen and I were able to do our work together, the whole thing just felt elevated. It really felt like flying.

You are one of eight siblings. How did you prepare to play someone who only has to navigate a relationship with one sibling?

Well, I have seven siblings, but each of those relationships is specific. Each of those relationships comes with its own challenges, its own peculiarities. I was actually able to go very personal in this role, and think about times that I’ve had challenging moments with my siblings. Natasha, as a writer also — we talked about that even before rehearsal. We talked about what it’s like — and I’ve seen this in so many families — even if you’re unflappable, there’s always that one person in your family who can get under your skin. It’s just stuff that’s been going back to when y’all were kids, and they took the toy out of your hand and never gave it back.

For us, part of the work was bringing the reality of our own relationships into this work. I think people really will relate to that episode, especially because they're going to see so much of their own family. They're going to think about the people in their family who they have a tough relationship with. For us, in order to do this the justice we need, we've got to really keep it real. I think we did a great job.

Boston Market takes a lot of strays in the episode. Did you want to personally walk back any of that slander, or are you Team Beverly with regard to Boston Market sides?

Boston Market, if y’all are seeing this, and y’all feel some kind of way, let’s talk. Let’s figure it out. Everything’s negotiable. Everything’s a conversation. 

We definitely played, and they did catch some strays. If it’s homemade, on Thanksgiving, people are supposed to put that labor in, and not just the people at Boston Market. It’s a bit of a sign, that it’s one of the things Brian’s mom was picking on his wife about. All these little things begin to add up, and you start to understand why this character is so completely twisted up.

You had acted a lot before you got the opportunity to create your own shows, South Side and Sherman’s Showcase. What is one lesson you learned on someone else’s set that you’ve found the most useful when you’ve been running your own?

One of the things that I learned — and I learned this probably from Jimmy Fallon — is really to invest deeply into the writers’ room. Not just in terms of making sure the writers have everything they need, but also, making sure that I’m in there every step of the way with the writers, to understand every motivation, and to really understand what we're going for, and to also make sure that I’m functioning as a writer at that time, and to help push the comedy forward. Then, when it comes to me being in front of the camera, hopefully all that education and preparation comes out. For somebody like a Jimmy, people don’t realize it’s a brand-new TV show every day, from scratch.

Some of the elements for The Tonight Show — or, when I was there, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon — is thought about a couple of days before, but often, something will be pitched that morning and it's produced that night. You have to be so focused and so aware. There’s no taking time off. There’s no taking days off. There’s no just showing up and saying, “What did they write? We’re doing this. Okay, that’s fine.” No, you have to give everything. The fact that we chose to give everything we had to South Side and Sherman’s Showcase was borne out in how much love and support they had.

I know you’re a huge fan of The Simpsons, and that it was a big touchstone when you were making South Side.

Gigantic.

What’s your single favorite Simpsons episode?

Oh my God.

As a fellow fan, I know it’s hard.

It’s probably between “Rosebud”—

“Have the Rolling Stones killed.”

Yes. “Mr. Burns, if you turn your head to the left, the people of Australia have spelled your name in lights.” “Rosebud.” “Radioactive Man” is another one where every scene is a revelation. But more recently, there’s one of the dumbest episodes they’ve ever done, but it’s also one of the smartest. Homer gains what at the time was the ungodly amount of weight: 300 pounds. Nowadays, I’m like, “That’s nothing.” But that episode, with the Iroquois Twists, and him plugging the toxic gas with his butt, I just feel, like, tears on my face. Lisa Simpson is defending her father about being too overweight, and then she looks out the window and he’s driving an ice cream truck, eating ice cream.

Lorne Michaels talks about this often: I think Natasha’s show, it’s already great, but I think we’re only beginning to see how great it’s going to be, because shows that have the ingredients to be great, when you give them a little time, they soar. We saw that with The Simpsons, and Natasha’s show is the same way. The show comes in on fire, but oh man, wait till you can keep watching it. It’s just going to turn into fireworks.