Interview: Beatrice Grannò on Playing Mia and Being Part of ‘The White Lotus’

HBO’s The White Lotus boasts an entirely new cast for its second, Italy-set season, with two notable exceptions. Among the best additions is Beatrice Grannò, who plays Mia, best friend to Lucia (Simona Tabasco) and an aspiring piano player willing to do whatever she needs to advance her career.

Awards Radar had the chance to speak to Grannò about working with her real-life friend Tabasco and the rest of the cast, including Sabrina Impacciatore, who plays Valentina:

“She’s a great actress in Italy, and she’s very famous as well for comedy, so I was very excited to work with her because she’s really funny. She’s got such a very funny energy that sometimes she’s not aware of, and I love that. It was great to work with her. It’s fun. At the beginning of the show, Valentina is really mean to Mia all the time. She always says, stay away from the piano, get off me, back off. And it’s nice that they have this moment where they meet again. Doing that scene was not easy. It was the first time for me to do a scene like that, but we were in a very safe environment, we had an intimacy coordinator. It was great to actually put myself there, also in a position where I was the one leading.”

On being part of American television:

“It feels amazing. To be honest, I did drama school in London, so I’ve learned to act in English, and I really hope that I have the chance to do more international projects where I can actually speak English, because in this show, I just speak Italian. I’d love to do that. Also, it’s crazy to be here, because in my career, I never thought that my dream would be to do that. I always dreamt of being an actress and telling amazing stories, but now that I did it, I’m like, I should have known. This is incredible.”

Watch the full conversation below:

The White Lotus is streaming on HBO Max.