IT’S almost time to return to The White Lotus, the luxury resort hotel of choice for filthy rich Americans behaving badly.
With season three of the HBO hit arriving on Monday via Sky Atlantic and NOW in the wake of Sunday night’s US premiere, here’s our primer on everything we know so far about the latest series of the show that’s already racked up an impressive 15 Emmys and two Golden Globes - plus, a chat with creator Mike White discussing some of the themes and creative decisions involved in the new episodes.
DESTINATION: THAILAND
While it was originally going to take place in Japan, this season ended up being set in Thailand, either due to the Thai government granting the producers massive tax breaks that the Japanese refused to match or because of Mike White’s fascination with the influence of Buddhism (read on for more on that).
The show itself and the kind of stories that these characters are facing are a little bit more existential and tragic.
— Mike White
With the previous two series having apparently caused spikes in tourist numbers for Hawaii and Sicilly, no doubt Thailand is now also set to enjoy ‘The White Lotus effect’.
GUEST CHECK-IN: WHO’S WHO IN THE WHITE LOTUS SEASON THREE
Belinda Lindsey (Natasha Rothwell)
Season one fans rejoice! Natasha Rothwell’s spa therapist Belinda, who was left hanging at the end of the first series when flighty widow Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) cooled on the promise of funding her own chain of Hawaiian wellness spas, is back.
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Hopefully, her luck is set to change for the better in this series.
The third season also features a raft of all new cast members, including:
- Jason Isaacs as Timothy Ratliff
- Parker Posey as Victoria Ratliff
- Sarah Catherine Hook as Piper Ratliff
- Sam Nivola as Lochlan Ratliff
- Patrick Schwarzenegger as Saxton Ratliff
- Michelle Monaghan as Jaclyn Lemon
- Carrie Coon as Laurie Duffy
- Leslie Bibb as Kate Bohr
- Walton Goggins as Rick Hatchett
- Aimee Lou Wood as Chelsea
- Dom Hetrakul as Pornchai
- Tayme Thapthimthong as Gaitok
- Lek Patravadi as Sritala
- Lalisa Manobal as Mook
Other actors involved include Scott Glenn, Charlotte Le Bon, Christian Friedel, Morgana O’Reilly, Shalini Peiris, Nicholas Duvernay, Arnas Fedaravičius, Julian Kostov and Lalisa Manobal.
THE MANAGEMENT: Q&A WITH THE WHITE LOTUS CREATOR AND SHOWRUNNER MIKE WHITE
WHY THAILAND?
Originally, it was kind of a stalking horse because I wanted to shoot in Japan. I’ve spent more time there and I just had a vision for doing it in Japan. Then we got to Thailand and obviously it’s such a lovely country and the people charmed us.
Then I had a weird experience where I got very sick with some kind of bronchitis and they put me on a nebulizer, which I’d never been on before, and it kept me awake for 48 hours.
In those 48 hours, the whole season came to me, so after I got better I came to the producers and said, “I think I just came up with the season and it’s in Thailand.’
Obviously, Japan is amazing and it would be incredible to shoot there, but it turned out to be such a great decision to shoot in Thailand and very life-changing.
WHAT’S THE SECRET TO KEEPING THE WHITE LOTUS FRESH WITH EACH NEW SEASON?
I think that for the show to feel fresh, it needs to either expand or shift or change. The first season was a lot about privilege and a kind of upstairs/downstairs thing with the employees and the guests and the comedy of that.
And then, when we were in Italy, the theme was more about sex and the dynamic between men and women and sexual relationships.
This season is dealing with more religion and spirituality and God, so the show itself and the kind of stories that these characters are facing are a little bit more existential and tragic.
It has a little bit more of an operatic, dramatic dimension because of the nature of exploring existential, spiritual themes.
Just like the other seasons, there’s the Fantasy Island element where instead of a plane, people arrive on a boat and they are transformed by their week on their vacation. That sort of setup is the same.
And it’s a certain type of clientele in some senses, although it’s not exclusively about those people, but about these people who are hoping to have this luxury vacation and how it becomes a much more fraught existential experience.
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT WRITING SEASON THREE?
I sometimes have moments where I’m like, ‘where did this come from?’ I can’t remember. It feels like it cobbles together.
This time, because of some more logistical issues with shooting so far away, it took a little bit longer for the show to happen and for us to start shooting. So, there was a longer period where I wasn’t writing but gestating on various ideas.
It didn’t really synthesize until I was in Thailand but it goes back to these Buddhist concepts that were an organizing principle that helped me orchestrate all the different characters.
I’ve read a lot of Buddhism in my life for whatever reason, so the idea that season three would be in a Buddhist country and grapple with some of the concepts of the Buddhist religion excited me.
The Buddhist ethos is very ripe with stories and characters, and I got excited about the spiritual dimension of Buddhism and how it really has such an impact on the people and the overall culture that you experience, even indirectly.
WHAT ROLE DO ANIMALS PLAY IN THE WHITE LOTUS?
There’s this kind of monkey template motif that’s been in all of the seasons a little bit. And there’s a lot of hooting monkeys in the score. My personal feeling is we’re animals and this season in particular is about people trying to reach their spiritual dimension at this animalistic base.
There’s this kind of conflict between wanting to be this spiritual creature that has an idealism and working towards something that’s some semblance of goodness, and then there’s this antic monkey side that keeps putting you in situations that are compromised.
Especially in the therapy sessions, we always put these monkeys sitting up on a tree watching them. And so, they have these spiritual conversations and there’s this monkey watching, being like, ‘oh, come on.’
I feel like there’s a little bit of that in me where you can’t take yourself too seriously when you realise, ‘yeah, you’re this sapient monkey.’
WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO BRING BACK NATASHA ROTHWELL’S CHARACTER FROM SEASON ONE?
Natasha was amazing to work with and such a great actress and so fun. I just remember after the first season, there were a lot of people that were bummed that Belinda had such a melancholy fate and that she was stuck working at this hotel and her dreams of having this spa had been dashed.
And so, I felt like there might be a way to revisit her story that would be satisfying because we left her kind of hanging there.
The idea of working with her again was incentive enough.
HOW DOES THIS SEASON EXPLORE MASCULINITY?
In my experience of going to Thailand, some of the expats I saw there, I thought, ‘what’s the deal with that guy?’ Like ‘where is he from?’ There were a lot of people who were being very vague about who they were, where they came from or what they did.
Usually, I write these more hard-boiled type of characters like Rick, Walton Goggins’s character, and there’s this trope of these bald men who are traveling alone or sometimes have younger girlfriends and you just feel like they may have left in the middle of the night from wherever they’re coming from.
That really seemed like something I could lean into as far as generating stories and characters that would be unique to the Thailand story.
I think masculinity can be a kind of trap with this sense of having to live, think and be a certain way and how that isolates these guys.
Jason Isaacs’ character and Walton’s character are both guys caught in this isolating drama that they can’t get out of. I felt like that was something that was worth exploring.
WHERE DID THE RATLIFF FAMILY’S DYNAMIC COME FROM?
The concept of Timothy’s storyline is a father who loves his family and is a provider and now that’s threatened. There’s this idea of his inability to admit defeat combined with this fear that 3 this family is not going to be able to function without the comforts and conveniences that come with money.
And there’s Victoria who thinks her family is better than everybody else and no one else even matters. She’s created this sort of situation where everyone’s looking inward and nobody is looking outward and so it creates a little bit of a dysfunction.
She’s such a snob that she doesn’t think nobody is worthy of her children.
Then, you have a brother, Saxon, and a sister, Piper, who are both vying for the soul or the mind of their younger brother, Lochlan.
Piper is on this spiritual journey and wants to be an ascetic and get away from all of the trappings of home and her family.
And then Saxon is the extreme of somebody who’s following in his dad’s footsteps, literally, and has the values of the West in the sense of being materialistic. And the way he thinks of sex, it’s like a numbers game and he really doesn’t see any kind of sentimental, romantic or spiritual dimension to any of it at all.
Then Lochlan is caught in the middle between those two and is easily influenced by whomever he’s with.
THIS SEASON ALSO EXPLORES THE OFTEN TURBULENT DYNAMICS OF FEMALE FRIENDSHIP...
It was a Buddhist idea of how we see ourselves in the other and how certain people in our lives who are touchstones can create suffering for us just by existing.
If you have people that you’ve gone through childhood with or have a long relationship with, some are more successful than others whether it’s in career or family. There are ways that you have maybe made bad decisions and just being around those people scratches certain wounds, even if they don’t mean to.
I had this idea of three friends that are almost interchangeable at the beginning. They’re all blondes. They all have this voluble, excitable energy and then you start to see how they’re all just slightly different and the differences start to really unravel their time there together.
I just remember that there have been times where I’ve been on vacations, and you’d see women friends together, and you were just like, ‘I can’t really get a vibe of what’s going on?’
And then one would leave and then the other two would start talking. They’re triangulating in some way. And so there’s some of that in the early episodes.
But it’s this sense of sameness and then focusing on the differences and how you have to justify your life to certain types of people that you have that history with you.
WHAT ABOUT CHELSEA AND RICK’S RELATIONSHIP?
Going to Thailand, this is just anecdotal, but you do see relationships, especially at some of these resorts with men of a certain age, a kind of a May December relationship.
I thought it would be kind of interesting to start with that type of dynamic where you think he got into it for the sex with a younger woman and they don’t have any interest anymore.
They’re just bickering at each other and then over time you realize, ‘oh, actually there’s more to this than I thought.’
Actually, in a way, it’s the closest the show has gotten to a real kind of earnest, romantic pairing.
YOU ALSO CAST A LOT OF THAI ACTORS IN THIS SERIES...
We have a great Thai casting director Non Jungmeier. Lek Patravadi [Sritala] is like the Judi Dench of Thailand and so it felt really cool to be able to have her. And the guy who plays the monk is Suthichai Yoon, who is basically like the Dan Rather of Thailand. He’s very well-known as a newscaster and not an actor.
Tayme Thapthimthong [Gaitok] and Dom Hetrakul [Pornchai] were just great auditions and felt like the right guys for this.
Obviously, Lisa Manobal, who plays Mook, is the pride of Thailand, but the truth is, I was not aware of Blackpink, but I heard that she was open to meeting.
There was a lot of excitement, especially from the Thai casting people about it. And I was like, ‘we don’t need stunt casting.’
I was actually very resistant just on concept, but then she came in and she did the best job. She was great right out the gate and also is just a lovely person.
It was easy for me as a director to communicate with her and she just had a lot of colours in her acting. It turned out to be a great thing.
The White Lotus airs every Monday at 9pm on Sky Atlantic. Episode one will be available on-demand via Sky Atlantic and NOW from 2am on Monday February 17.
