One thing that those perpetually online all have in common is an abundance of opinions. Spend just a few minutes on any social media app, and you’ll find content covering everything from film to television to conspiracy theories to true crime and beyond. Anytime a piece of art catches the public eye, it inspires intense obsession, and HBO’s The White Lotus is definitely no exception. In fact, when it comes to advocating or recommending The White Lotus casting for an upcoming season, fans advocate for nearly every major name in Hollywood. Poor Mike White can’t even have lunch with a long-time friend without speculation that she will star in season four.
Yes, it’s fun to play the casting game, but don’t think it influences the end result. The White Lotus Emmy-winning casting director Meredith Tucker pays no attention to the gossip. In fact, she doesn’t even have social media.
“Every season there seems to be a little bit more pressure. It’s not only just the pressure, but it’s also the speculation. All the people reporting on every little single thing that they’ve heard or they might be hearing. That’s something that I still slightly can’t wrap my head around, to be honest, but it’s good thing,” Tucker laughed. “I’m not on any social media. I actually even avoided press coverage of it just because I’m very protective of the show. So, I just to sort of protect my sanity and everything. Ultimately, it’s not going to help me cast the next season any better, which is my ultimate goal.”
It’s difficult imagining a cast that could top the creative brilliance of The White Lotus: Thailand‘s cast. You know the names: Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan, Natasha Rothwell, Walton Goggins, Sam Rockwell, Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Aimee Lou Wood, Scott Glenn, Sam Nivola, Lalisa Manobal, and so many more great actors. The beauty of The White Lotus remains the intersection of the actors across plot lines that intersect in intriguing ways.
Yes, White’s writing is always brilliant. Yet, if you don’t have the right combination of actors with strong chemistry, then these intersections run the risk of seeming pointlessly random. Tucker’s long-term partnership with White allows the process to run smoothly and effectively.
Season three casting conversations started pre-SAG strike, which afforded a great deal of time to sort through possibilities based on White’s character sketches. However, once the strike ended, Tucker’s casting process took off at light speed.
“The thing that’s so great about Mike is he knows what he wants, but yet he’s very open-minded. Not a lot of writers and directors are like that. They often don’t know what they want, but they think they do,” Tucker shared. “He’s always open to seeing actors he doesn’t know, even if they aren’t exactly how he originally envisioned the character. He’s able to remold it for that actor.”
One season three character that evolved throughout the casting process, one that proved the most challenging to cast, was Chelsea, eventually played by Emmy nominee Aimee Lou Wood. According to Tucker, White sometimes speaks of his characters in terms of prototypes. Originally, Chelsea emerged as a “Jennifer Lawrence” in Silver Linings Playbook. Then, she turned into more of a “Judy Holliday” in Born Yesterday.
Wood submitted an audition tape early in the process, and Tucker and White kept going back to that tape as the character evolved. Complicating her casting was the tight relationship between Chelsea and Rick, played by Walton Goggins. Chelsea also interacts with members of the Ratliff family and other integral characters across the series.
Tucker’s selection of Wood for the role paid off extraordinarily well, maybe too well considering the character’s ultimate fate.
“I thought she really did such a gorgeous job with [Chelsea]. When we first cast her, [White] said that people would be mad just because she is so heartbreaking and knowing her ultimate demise,” Tucker admitted. “I think she was very effective just because she was so loved and so endearing in that character.”
Shockingly, Tucker revealed that there were no chemistry reads on The White Lotus. For the series, White selected actors for many roles directly off tape, not even meeting with the performers until after they’ve signed on. For example, when casting the group of long-time friends of Coon, Bibb, and Monaghan, White simply gave the note that he wanted them to look somewhat alike and be relatively the same age.
Tucker indicated that it’s a testament to White’s writing and directing that the relationships between the actors and their characters shine through so beautifully.
“I don’t know if those women knew each other beforehand, but they certainly seemed like it. You bought that they were old, old friends,” Tucker enthused.
Given the setting, the cast required local casting assistance courtesy of Emmy nominee Non Jungmeier. Jungmeier was able to rely on her knowledge of locally famous actors to bring extraordinary talent to the set. Tucker mentioned being obsessed with an old performance tape of Lek Patravadi who plays hotel owner Sritala Hollinger. The tape ended up on screen in an episode as Sritala orients Sam Rockwell’s character with her past history as a performer.
Jungmeier also coordinated bringing on pop star Lalisa Manobal or Lisa.
“It was such a departure from what I think people would think. She’s such a huge star and plays this fairly modest person, a support staff at a hotel. It’s not like she was playing the big star,” Tucker said. “I thought that was a really nice way to flip expectations.”
The White Lotus streams exclusively on HBO.
