The White Lotus season 3 will debut on HBO in just two weeks, and creator Mike White has teased that the new season will be “much, much darker” than the others.
“I do feel like the other seasons were a rehearsal for this one,” White told TIME. “There’s stuff that I’ve never directed before.” The new season is set at an exclusive Thai resort and follows the exploits of various guests and employees over the course of a week. “They’re all in some kind of hurt,” White said of the new 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.“
White originally wanted to shoot the third season in Japan, but HBO wasn’t sure and urged him to consider Thailand instead. White wasn’t sure, but after being hospitalized with severe bronchitis while scouting locations, he came up with the story. “They put me on a nebulizer. I didn’t sleep for like two nights, and by the next morning I was like, ‘I think I have the plot,’” he said. “The season is pretty much what happened that night…. I felt like I had the ending. And so I was like, ‘I guess we’re shooting in Thailand.’“
Just like the first two seasons, the third season features an all-star cast which includes Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Sarah Catherine Hook, Jason Isaacs, Lalisa Manobal, Michelle Monaghan, Sam Nivola, Lek Patravadi, Parker Posey, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Tayme Thapthimthong, Aimee Lou Wood. Additional cast includes Nicholas Duvernay, Arnas Fedaravičius, Christian Friedel, Scott Glenn, Dom Hetrakul, Julian Kostov, Charlotte Le Bon, Morgana O’Reilly, and Shalini Peiris. As far as returning cast members, the only one back this time around is Natasha Rothwell, who played spa manager Belinda Lindsey in the first season.
The third season of The White Lotus will consist of eight episodes, making it the biggest season to date. “It’s going to be a supersized White Lotus,” said White last year. “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. There’s no place I’d rather work than HBO and there’s no people I’d rather partner with than Casey Bloys, Francesca Orsi, Nora Skinner and their incredible team. I feel so lucky to get this opportunity again and am excited to reunite with my amazingly talented collaborators on The White Lotus.”
The White Lotus season 3 will debut on February 16th.
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