Mike White Teases a Much Darker ‘White Lotus’: “The Other Seasons Were a Rehearsal for This One”
Get ready for a darker White Lotus, says creator Mike White.
The sole writer-director of HBO’s Emmy-winning hit returns with the third season of his adored black comedy on Feb. 16. This time around, the guests will be visiting the Thailand location of the White Lotus hotel chain that ties all of the seasons together.
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But White, in a new interview with Time, says the Thailand-set season will be “much, much darker” than the two previous seasons, which were set in Hawaii and Italy, respectively. It’s also grander and more epic, he says.
“I do feel like the other seasons were a rehearsal for this one,” said White, while speaking to the outlet from the show’s set in Phuket.
When discussing how years of travel and his observations of how a vacation can devolve into an existential crisis, White says, “If you’re in some place where it’s a different culture, different language, different vibe, and you’re also dealing with heavy personal things [there are moments where] you feel like, ‘Should I just walk into the water?’”
Season three of the White Lotus cast includes Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Parker Posey, Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb, Jason Isaacs, Patrick Schwarzenegger and more as hotel guests of the White Lotus in Thailand. Among the staff is Tayme Thapthimthong, Lalisa Manobal of K-pop’s Blackpink and returning star Natasha Rothwell, who reprises her season one character, spa manager Belinda, from the White Lotus Hawaii.
Goggins told Time that his character is lost when he arrives in season three. “He is angry, and he’s bitter about the hand that life has dealt him,” he said. White also acknowledged the absence of Emmy-winning seasons one and two star, and his close friend, Jennifer Coolidge — whose character saw a tragic fate in the season two finale — adding “there’s definitely some performances I feel rival her as far as hopefully iconic performances.”
“They’re all in some kind of hurt,” he added of this season’s guests. “Like, they’re all dead, but they don’t know it…because it’s dealing with these existential tropes of facing into the nothingness of self [and] Buddhist themes that have life and death and ethical aspects, [the season] just got more heavy.”
The first season highlighted money and the second sex, and White had previously said this third season would be a “satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality.” The third season explores his interest in Eastern spirituality and wellness practices, along with his skepticism of how Westerners use the medicine on self-care.
“It’s been a hard year for me personally,” said White briefly of more of his inspiration. “My parents are getting older, and there’s a lot of stuff going on at home that’s not fun.”
This season’s resort was filmed at the Four Seasons Koh Samui, a place some of the richest people not only in Thailand, but globally haunt. Amid the lush, extravagant setting, record-breaking heat caused some crew to fall ill near the end of production; White went vegan before filming to prepare and stay in top shape; and between takes, hair dryers were used on the cast to remove sweat patches from clothes. “We’re doing intimate scenes, and you stink,” said Isaacs. “It would be churlish to complain, there are terrible things going on in the world, but we’ve all had enough.”
The filming schedule was also more siloed for the cast. Following an arrival blessing ceremony that bonded the group, the crew shot two weeks of breakfast scenes, two weeks of lunches, two weeks of bedroom drama and then two weeks out at sea. This led to the cast bonding even more with their onscreen travel partners.
“The distance is really disappearing between fiction and reality, because we’re living in the show. It’s so weird. It’s all very meta,” said Aimee Lou Wood of the cast also living at the hotel during filming.
It was reported that White initially wanted to film season three in Japan. The Time piece says HBO was hesitant of the “red tape” and instead convinced the creator to set the season in Thailand.
White said he agreed after being hospitalized with severe bronchitis. “I didn’t sleep for like two nights, and by the next morning I was like, ‘I think I have the plot.’ The season is pretty much what happened that night,” he said of his fever dream, adding that he was put on a nebulizer. “I felt like I had the ending. And so I was like, ‘I guess we’re shooting in Thailand.’”
The location also carries with it TV memories for White, who competed in reality TV game shows The Amazing Race and Survivor before creating one of television’s favorite offerings. In 2001, when he and his father Mel were eliminated from the 14th season of the Phuket-season of The Amazing Race, they were sequestered in Koh Samui. “I would’ve hated to have gone through the rest of my life having some bad association with Thailand,” he said of turning his Thailand memories around with White Lotus.
“It has this paradisiacal but surreal feeling,” added White of the Thailand season. “Embedded into the show is a little bit of Hotel California — you can check in, but you can never leave.”
The White Lotus, meanwhile, has already been renewed for a fourth season. White said he has “some ideas” for what future seasons could be and that he could imagine making “maybe six seasons.”
For more on season three, here’s everything we know about White Lotus Thailand.
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