‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 Teaser: Parker Posey and Walton Goggins Get High to Find Escapist Enlightenment
Guests of The White Lotus in Thailand are already beginning to check in.
Season 3 of the beloved anthology series, created by Mike White, debuted its first teaser on Monday. This time, “The White Lotus” travels to Thailand for an installment that features 13 cast members, including Season 1 returning star Natasha Rothwell.
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Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Parker Posey, Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan, and Jason Isaacs are among the buzzy cast members who will be tangled up in murder, mystery, and deceit. “The White Lotus” will debut in 2025.
Thailand is a great setting for “The White Lotus” — with even greater savings. Japanese producer Georgina Pope said at the Tokyo Film Festival that White was wooed by a $4.4 million tax rebate to film in Thailand, not Japan.
“The White Lotus” creator White previously teased to Entertainment Weekly that the season will be a “supersized ‘White Lotus.’ It’s going to be longer, bigger, crazier. I don’t know what people will think, but I am super excited, so at least for my own barometer, that’s a good thing.”
The third installment will focus on “death and Eastern religion and spirituality,” as White previously shared during a post-finale Season 2 featurette. “The first season kind of highlighted money, and then the second season is sex,” White said. “I think the third season would be maybe a satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at White Lotus.”
Season 3 cast member Coon told Vanity Fair that the installment is even more “about death” than the blood-tinged blowout that was Season 2.
“I think he’s playing with some really interesting dynamics,” Coon said of White’s vision for the third season. “I think it’s something he would continue to do if they let him, because I think he would like to get bigger and more international and put together weirder groups of people — that’s what he’s passionate about,” she said. “And I think that’s important in this world, to see people banging up against each other in this way. Of course, he’s satirizing rich white people, and he’s doing it very well. He’s really speaking to people who need to be spoken to in a really interesting way. He had a season about money; he had a season about sex. And this is his season about death.”
And Coon is just one key part of the intricate ensemble cast. “The White Lotus” casting director Meredith Tucker told IndieWire in August 2023 that she and White “make lists” of dream casting.
“But it’s not like he’s like, ‘Ok, let’s make an offer to this person, this person, this person,'” Tucker said. “Even with the name-ier people he does like to talk it through, and he very much likes everyone to read. Obviously some people are not going to read, but some people who normally wouldn’t read are willing to read because they want to be part of it, and it is very important to him. He likes to not just see the actors, he also likes to hear the dialogue. It helps him as a writer as well, so that’s been an important part of the process and will continue to be. I don’t think the M.O. is going to change at all. As the seasons progress, it’s still going to be the same — people reading, maybe a couple people getting straight offers. I always like to give new people opportunities, people who aren’t as well-known.”
“The White Lotus” Season 3 premieres February 16 on Max. Check out the teaser below.
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