Steven Prusakowski
We’re just past the halfway point of The White Lotus season three, and like a garden still in full bloom, it’s clear there’s much more to uncover about the characters. Each character is a unique flower that unfolds in their own time, slowly revealing new layers beneath their surface. Petal by petal, twist by twist, their journeys contribute to a larger, unpredictable story that keeps viewers guessing until the final moments of the season.
If the characters are the flowers, then the master gardener is creator/writer/director Mike White, whose careful crafting ensures every storyline blossoms in unexpected, fascinating ways. Awards Radar had the opportunity to speak with the cast about their roles. (Full video interviews at the end of the article.) One thing was clear, they all hold White in high regard. The cast credits him not only creating the lush, captivating world of The White Lotus, but also his ability to guide the actors as they explore the reveals of their characters, while keeping them guessing with every new development.
Michelle Monaghan, who plays Jaclyn, an actress on a girls holiday at the resort, explained some of the process. Since they shot out of sequence it was crucial to understand their character’s full arc in able to properly portray them. “The ladies storyline, as we refer to it, kicked off production,” said Monaghan. “And so day one, we were shooting episode one and episode eight. So we really had to make sure that our emotional journeys and our arcs were kind of very clear from the start.”
Fans of the series understand how many twists and turns there are on this garden path. For Amy Lou Wood, who plays Chelsea, reading the scripts had her trying to guess where everything was leading for her character. “So reading the scripts, I was like, ‘I know who Chelsea is. I know who she is now.’ And then I’d read the next step and it would be like, ‘What?,’ shared Wood. “(Mike White) is just so good at that, it reveals itself like that to us as the actors, it is a slow reveal. And that’s so exciting. By the end of it, you just kind of understand exactly where your character fits into the story because he’s such a good storyteller.”
Mike White is not only the creator, writer, and director of The White Lotus, he’s also one of the most memorable contestants on Survivor, in addition to being an actor with 20 film and TV credits, including roles in my favorites, School of Rock and Freaks and Geeks. This acting experience allows him to connect with the cast in a way that not every director/producer can, helping to fertilize their performances and nurture the growth of each character.
“Mike understands and respects the actor’s process,” explained Monhagan. “He understands when you go to him with a question of a particular quality or a characteristic, where he wants that revealed and where he wants you to kind of lean into it or highlight it just by percentages. You can trust him implicitly from every stage of the process.”
This trust is important when the actors venture down dark unexpected paths. But not every storyline ventures into darkness… yet. Carrie Coon plays Laurie, part of a trio of old friends (along with Monaghan and Leslie Bibb) who come to The White Lotus for a girls’ trip only to find they do not know each other as well as they thought they did. The storyline provides some moments of humor as well as a look at how the evolution of a friendship.
“I was so gratified to see where Mike (White) has gone very Greek and very transgressive in some of the other storylines, and this storyline felt particularly grounded in a typical experience,” said Coon. “I felt that I knew that the female’s friendship storyline was going to be a real weigh-in for a lot of people, and I was really happy to be part of such a relatable piece of the show”.
Leslie Bibb, who plays Kate, a character who made headlines for being a Trump supporter discussed the friendship. “As you peel away these layers, you start to see these three very different, all dynamic women, but also all not living their truth ,” explained Bibb. “We joke that if one of us had just walked into the trip and just said, “This is how I feel,” and risked being that honest, it would have been a very different trip in Thailand.”
While the girlfriends’ storyline may be one of the most relatable, Coon calls the rest of the series “jaw-droppingly shocking sometimes.” This is particularly true for the Ratcliffs, a dysfunctional family with a drugged-out mother (Parker Posey) and father Tim (Jason Isaacs), whose life, unbeknownst to his family, is starting to crumble. Isaacs describes the character as “a big swinging dick of Wall Street” who comes from “generations of wealth and privilege.” Like all of White’s characters, much more of him unfolds throughout the season.
“One of the beauties of what Mike White does is he’s slowly revealing things that are going to happen both on the page and what’s happening behind the scenes to these characters, both evident and not,” shared Isaacs. “I think that’s what he really wants is for the consumer to really think about what’s going on and what this journey is for each and every character.”
“As the storyline continued, I just was continuously wondering where it was going to go, and then when it got to where it was going, I was shocked,” Isaacs continued. Watching his character’s fall from grace has been one of the most intriguing storylines of the season. The chaos of the Ratcliff family isn’t reserved to the parents, it extends to their three children.
Playing the eldest son, Saxon, is Patrick Schwarzenegger, an apple that does not fall far from the tree, who makes some questionable decisions of his own. The actor praised the depth of development in The White Lotus, which allowed each character to be dissected and examined. “For me, I think he (White) strips layers off people, but by throwing fate and destiny and circumstance at them so that their very worst, almost difficult situation, the thing that is the most catastrophic thing that could happen to them internally happens externally, and then we watch them struggle with those things, particularly in this season.”
None of White’s characters are painted with a single brush, including Saxon. Schwarzenegger shared, “There’s some humanizing moments and elements of Saxon as well, and the vulnerability of him I think people hopefully will enjoy watching.”
Watching White’s complex characters navigate such trying situations is part of the draw of the series. It leads to questions that viewers are constantly trying to figure out, and the actors playing them are doing the same. Sam Nivola (who plays Tim’s other son, Lochlan) explained how his experience evolved during production: “You’re always finding out new things as the shoot goes on. We would share with each other. And I think understanding each other’s characters so well really helped us to understand their motives and sort of pick them apart in the scenes.”
Sarah Catherine Hook, who plays the third Ratcliff sibling, Piper, sums up the experience of working with Mike White perfectly, calling it “the best part about it for all of us” because “he’s just this mad genius who created this like cultural phenomenon.”
The White Lotus is heading toward its final episodes and, as expected, viewers have no idea what to expect but are looking forward to seeing how this garden’s final secrets are revealed.
Watch my full video cast interviews which dig deeper into the characters, working Thailand, rating the Ratcliff parents, dealing with the wildlife, and much more can be watched in their entirety below.
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