‘White Lotus’ Season 3 Promises ‘Sex, Drugs And Tofu’ – Forbes
Leslie Bibb, Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Michelle Monaghan, Carrie Coon, Parker Posey, Patrick … [+] Schwarzenegger, and a returning Natasha Rothwell are among the faces as ‘The White Lotus’ heads to Thailand.”We literally just locked picture on the finale two days ago, so you’re looking at somebody who has just crossed the finish line of the hardest race he’s ever run,” explains The White Lotus’ creator and writer Mike White. “It was harder because the show is longer, so there’s more of the show and more characters. Thailand was a beautiful place to shoot, but it also had a lot of challenges. The writers’ strike was going on in the middle of it, plus there was a lot going on in my life, too, and it takes over two years of your life. I feel proud to be just sitting here honestly because there were days I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll just die today,’ so I’m proud that I got through it.”His candid relief came as he addressed a room of invited journalists and other content creators at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles ahead of the show’s red carpet premiere. The third season of the Emmy-winning The White Lotus will premiere on HBO on Sunday, February 16, 2025, at 9 pm EST/PST and will be available to stream on Max, with new episodes dropping weekly. The White Lotus has already been renewed for a fourth season.Set in Thailand and taking place at a luxury resort over the space of a week, this season’s ensemble cast includes Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan, Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Blackpink’s Lalisa Manobal and season one’s Natasha Rothwell returning as Belinda. When asked to describe the season in three words, after initially saying, “Best one yet,” Isaacs changes his mind and opts for “Sex, drugs, and tofu.””Mike was in town for the Emmys for season one, and he wanted to go out to dinner,” Rothwell recalls when asked about her return. “I didn’t think anything of it, and during dinner, he’s like, ‘You know, I’m still in season two, but I’m already thinking about season three, and I think I might want to bring Belinda back,’ and I was just like, ‘Say less. I’ll be there.’ He followed up, and sure enough, after everything, and he’s like, ‘She’s really back.’ I was just like, ‘Let me get my passport together.'””I spent a year in Tokyo in my 20s, but I’d never been to Thailand, and one of the things I learned when I was there, which was really powerful, was that Thailand had never been colonized. To be shooting and working in a country that isn’t constantly trying to heal from historical trauma, you feel that lightness, that acceptance, and you feel that peace. It was really wonderful to be there, to experience a place like that.”One moment during filming that has really stuck with Rothwell, also known for Insecure and How to Die Alone, is when her character encounters other Black guests at the resort.”I pitched that moment,” she reveals. “I remember telling Mike a story about when I went to Ireland. I was on some hill with fog and a castle, and there was not a black person to be seen, and this Black family sort of emerged from the mist, and we hugged without speaking, and then we pulled away. I was like, ‘Do you even speak English?’ They were like, ‘Yes,’ and I learned that she and her husband were taking their kids abroad and letting them learn from the world. I’ve had that happen so many times.””It even happened while we were shooting The White Lotus. Thailand is a very homogeneous country, with not a lot of Black people, so there was a Black guest who was staying at the same hotel that we were shooting at, and again, I walked up and hugged them. I think it emphasized the importance of Black travel and seeing Black people in spaces. That moment for Belinda, it’s an opportunity for her to see what’s possible. It’s her thinking about that. That’s why representation and visibility are so important: they allow you to imagine yourself in situations you may not ordinarily find yourself in. The first time I saw a Black family in First Class, I remember walking by like, ‘Okay, I see you. We’re going to do this.’ It’s cool to have that moment for Belinda and internalize it.”Natasha Rothwell returns as Belinda in ‘The White Lotus.’Filming The White Lotus’ third season was a revelation for several of the cast in different ways. For Manobal, it sees her making her acting debut.
“I remember my first scene, which was with Aimee (Lou Wood) and Walton,” she recalls. “I was so nervous. I didn’t know what to do. I have to act in English, and it’s not my first language at all. I really had fun doing this, and in the future, I want to do more.””I’m just so happy that I can be a part of this season. I’m Thai, so I am really grateful that I can do this. What did I learn about Thailand? I feel more reconnected because I left when I was 14 to (move to) South Korea. So, after I was 14, I didn’t have a chance to spend this amount of time in Thailand, so spending six or seven months with my family there was really nice.”Costar and series regular Tayme Thapthimthong adds, “For me, coming over from England, 12 years prior to getting cast on the show, I got to soak up a lot of Thai culture but to actually play a local and have to make the dialogue convincing, especially when I’m doing it in Thai, I had to work on that quite a bit. Also, when I spoke English, I had to make it how a local Thai would speak English. Lalisa really helped me out with that because in the Thai dialogue at first, when they gave me the script, they said, ‘You have to follow the script exactly, just do it how you would normally speak,’ then I did it for them, and they’re like, ‘This is a bit, you know?’ So we sat down and were like, ‘Okay, let’s work on this and make it more convincing.’ She helped rephrase a lot of sentences for me so it would sound more natural and authentic.”And Goggins, known for Fallout, The Righteous Gemstones, and Django Unchained, set out to infuse his performance as Rick Hatchett with authenticity, drawing on his own life experience.”Rick is a guy who has been running from his past for a long time. He’s a guy who operates on the fringes of society,” the actor enthuses. “He makes his living doing nefarious things and has been doing it for a number of years. Rick is a world traveler for a reason; he can’t go back home. He can’t face what happened in his life, and I’ve met a lot of people like this on the road. I’ve hung out with quite a few of these people.””At the end of the day, there’s a catalyst for all of us in our own existential crisis. Whether it’s a song, a book, a beach, or whatever that is, there’s a catalyst for him that allows him to look at himself and say, ‘How did I get here? Why am I living this life and not the life that I could have had? And who is responsible for that?’ His purpose is set from the very beginning of the show, and it’s the last to be revealed. He comes there with a purpose, and that purpose is closure, unbeknownst to the love of his life. She has no idea. The way in which this onion pulls back throughout all eight episodes is a match made in heaven.” Season three is the longest The White Lotus yet.Jason Isaacs as Timothy Ratfliff in ‘The White Lotus.’In The White Lotus, Issacs, known to a generation as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise as well for his performances in Black Hawk Down, The Patriot, and Star Trek: Discovery, plays Timothy Ratfliff, a wealthy Southern businessman who is vacationing with wife Victoria, played by Posey, and their three adult children, played by Sarah Catherine Hook, Sam Nivola, and Patrick Schwarzenegger. Just like Thapthimthong, the British actor wanted to get the regional twang spot on as it was “a rich guy” accent.”I looked for representatives who were from that place, and I found town mayors and a bunch of other people,” he enthuses. “Some vowels are very specific to Durham, North Carolina; they’re anomalous, and I have friends in the South who hate it when actors use Kentucky Fried Chicken-style accents. I’m fortunate that Parker was there, too.” The actress is from Louisiana. “Victoria may well not have been born there, but in the script, later on, you find out how much I’m embedded in the history of that place. People talk about the Big Swinging Dicks of Wall Street, but Timothy is the Big Swinging Dick of Durham. You probably get an equal share of good and bad scripts, but I don’t think you get ones like Mike White’s scripts. They are incredibly rare.”He concludes, “It’s very rare that you come across writing that is so three-dimensional, and Mike brilliantly introduces what seems like one-dimensional characters, and then he adds things to it. He peels the layers away and puts them in impossible pressure critical situations until the only thing that can emerge is that essential humanity. It reminded me slightly of Raging Bull. I remember reading about the pitch where you have a man, ostensibly, where he’s a man who beats his wife, he beats his brother, and he hates himself. Still, there’s no way your heart doesn’t break for Jake LaMotta, and that’s true for all these characters here, who seem slightly grotesque until you see their lives falling apart. For my character in The White Lotus, my entire life, and everything about what I thought I stood for, and the people I love is threatened, and you see that there are more things we have in common than separates us.”
