Natalie Morales‘ first-ever audition couldn’t have gone much worse.

While walking around a grocery store in Southwest Miami, 9-year-old Morales spotted a poster encouraging kids to audition for a theater show. She badgered her mother to take her to the casting session. There was just one problem. “My mom was in no way a show business mom,” Morales says to Flamingo in a recent phone interview. “We didn’t know that you had to arrive with something prepared.”

When the casting agents asked Morales to perform a song she’d prepared, she just stared blankly back at them. It quickly became clear that Morales didn’t know what to sing. So, she was told to give a rendition of, “I Will Always Love You,” by Whitney Houston. A song that even professional singers find tough to do justice. Morales’s task was particularly challenging because she didn’t know the lyrics. “I did horribly,” Morales admits while laughing. “I did not get cast, and my mother never took me on anything like that ever again.”

Morales clearly improved at auditioning as the years went on, though. Television fans will recognize her from “Parks & Recreation,”“Santa Clarita Diet,” “Dead To Me” and “The Morning Show.” She has also appeared in the movies “Battle Of The Sexes” and “No Hard Feelings,” released in 2023.

Morales’s latest film “My Dead Friend Zoe,” coming to theaters Feb. 28, sees her playing the deceased titular character. Directed and co-written by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, the film is based on his five years of service in the United States Army during the Iraq War, when he received a Bronze Star Medal. The dark comedy revolves around Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green), a U.S. veteran who keeps on seeing the presence of Zoe, her best friend who died in combat. As she tries to aid her estranged grandfather Dale (Ed Harris) after he is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Merit seeks the help of Dr. Cole (Morgan Freeman), all while trying to heal herself.

After expanding his short film “Merit x Zoe” into a feature, Hausmann-Stokes immediately thought of Morales for the part of Zoe. In fact, after completing the script, he wrote Morales a letter asking if she’d be interested in joining the film.

“It was so beautiful,” she says. “He told me about how it was his story, how it was based on his own experience with his friends, how the story was about the loss and PTSD he suffered.” Impressed by both Hausmann-Stokes’ personal approach and the script for “My Dead Friend Zoe,” which he had co-written with A.J. Bermudez, Morales signed on. “I wanted to go on that mission with him. It just felt really important and hopeful.”

Gaining Confidence and Discovering Keaton

It’s somewhat ironic that Morales is now so sought after by various filmmakers, producers and studios across film and television. When she joined Southwest Miami Senior High, Morales’s guidance counselor had to convince her to give drama a try. Despite the trauma of her first audition, Morales felt much more comfortable performing as a teen. “It was really fun. I met some lifelong friends there. It wasn’t until I was 18 that I even considered I could do it professionally. Even though everyone around me told me I was nuts for trying to do it as a living. I had some sort of bravado that made me feel like I could do it.”

Propelled by her newfound confidence, Morales moved to Los Angeles at the age of 20. Shortly after arriving in the city, Morales had a formative creative experience that not only inspired her as an actor, but sparked her interest in filmmaking, too. “I saw Buster Keaton’s ‘Sherlock Jr,’ and I was just totally blown away by it,” Morales says. “I think I had been looking for inspiration for a while, and I loved old movies. Buster Keaton’s work has always been a North Star for me, in acting, directing and storytelling.”

Rewriting the Script

Over the next 15 years, Morales couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the parts she was auditioning for were “never the leads and never that interesting.” Instead, “the roles for Latina women, or anybody that wasn’t white, were relegated to stereotypes.”

Fed up that she and her friends weren’t “getting the work that they deserved,” Morales started to write. “I would take meetings with people about these projects. But I’d leave knowing that they were going to ruin it. So, I decided that I need to learn how to direct,” she says. As a huge fan of MTV growing up, Morales took her first steps as a filmmaker by directing music videos for free. She also made “Beetches,” a fake trailer for a Latino remake of Bette Midler’s Beaches, and five installments of “James Joyce’s Love Letters,” all for independent studio Funny Or Die.

I really want to have the opportunity to shine a light on Miami and inspire people.
—Natalie Morales

Even after Morales had been directing for a while, whenever she took industry meetings about overseeing a feature film or television show, they’d only want to talk about her acting. After a conversation with her publicist Samantha Srinivasan, a purposeful push was made to change the perception of Morales.

“There’s a team behind everyone,” she says. “We all had a shared vision because I’d been directing for a while. Samantha and her team really pushed the conversation in that direction and got people talking about me in a different way. That really got me more directing work.”

The results were the feature films “Plan B”—a coming-of-age comedy about two teens searching for the Plan B pill—and “Language Lessons”—a screenlife drama about the unexpected friendship between a Spanish teacher and her adult student. Both films differ vastly in tone and the circumstances under which they were made, but both were still met with critical acclaim and even scored the same 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

305 Auteur

As Morales continues to develop a variety of directorial projects, she still appears as an actor in a wide range of productions. While “My Dead Friend Zoe” was made on a low budget of $2.8 million and premiered at the SxSW Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, Morales can also be seen in “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC’s longest-running primetime series, which was the most-streamed drama series of 2024.

“They very kindly offered me a part in ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ which was just wild,” Morales says of joining the long-running hospital drama. “It’s such an institution. It’s been so lovely. The cast and crew are the sweetest, so are the fans from across the world. It’s just been a really great experience.”

But while Morales has made great creative strides in Hollywood, she can’t help but think of her roots on the East Coast and the projects that she wants to make there, too. “I want to be the Scorsese of Miami,” insists Morales. “There’s no other place like Miami in the United States or even in the world. There’s so much culture and connection to be made. I really want to have the opportunity to shine a light on Miami and inspire people.”

After everything she’s achieved so far, only a fool would bet against Morales doing just that.

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