The White Lotus cast and crew have revealed several details about the cast that almost was, including which well-known actor almost played Walton Goggins’ Rick Hatchett and why creator Mike White “didn’t want to cast” Patrick Schwarzenegger at first.
The buzzy third season has everyone talking, and according to his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, White is just as engaged in the discourse as the rest of us.
“People now come into the show thinking it needs to be about hotel employees getting stepped on by rich people every season,” White said. “Then there’s the criticism that the show has become the thing it was supposed to satirize. At this point, people want The White Lotus to be different things.”
Some things about the show were different, White, producer David Bernad, casting director Meredith Tucker, the cast, and more revealed to THR ahead of the season’s April 6 finale.
Woody Harrelson was the first choice to play Walton Goggins’ part—and later, Sam Rockwell’s.
Multiple sources told the site that Woody Harrelson was the original choice to play Rick opposite Aimee Lou Wood’s Chelsea, after which Harrelson confirmed that news himself with a statement. The actor also revealed that he ultimately signed on to play Sam Rockwell’s role as Frank, before he had to drop out due to a scheduling conflict. Bernad told the site “Everyone is treated the same” when it comes to billing (which is alphabetical) and pay, breeding speculation Harrelson passed on the roles over the paycheck. According to the site’s sources, Harrelson tried meeting with David Zaslav to renegotiate his salary, which was a no-go. However, The Daily Beast has confirmed with Harrelson’s reps that the actor was gung-ho to join the cast anyway, until he couldn’t. Harrelson said in a statement, “I was set to do White Lotus and very excited. Unfortunately, their production schedule shifted, and conflicted with a pre-planned family vacation, forcing me to make an extremely hard decision. Things must be meant to be though, because I couldn’t have done as fantastic a job as Sam, who is killing it."
Walton Goggins took on the Rick role after he was originally slated to play “one of these bald guys we pepper the thing with,” according to White. “Walton’s not exactly that. He’s a bit more handsome, he has hair,” so the role they landed on for Goggins made sense, he added.
Patrick Schwarzenegger almost didn’t get the job because of his nepo baby status.
The oldest son of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver nearly lost out on the role of the oldest Ratliff brother Saxon, Bernad said. “Patrick Schwarzenegger’s last name worked against him, by the way. We didn’t want to cast him because of that.” Schwarzenegger has opined that people think he was handed his role because of “who his dad is,” telling The Sunday Times that he works on his characters “for hours” and took “10 years of acting classes.” At least in this case, his famous parents nearly cost him the opportunity. Ultimately, Bernad said, “He was just so good,” that they chose him for the role.
White didn’t want to cast Blackpink’s Lisa either.
The K-Pop star at the center of the show was almost deemed too famous (in Thailand) to land the part. All White heard was that “There was a Blackpink girl [Jennie Kim] in The Idol, and I was like, ‘We’re not doing that,‘” he told THR. Before that, he said, “I did not know who Lisa or Blackpink was.” After he said no, however, Lisa’s reps offered for her to audition. “Her audition was amazing,” White said, “and Lisa’s so nice and uncomplicated, but I still didn’t want to cast her. I’m just used to not having so much attention; we don’t need it.” But I wanted to be respectful to Thailand. She’s like Taylor Swift meets Princess Diana there.” White added, “When we cast her, there were people in the production that cried.” He was glad it was a “nice part” that didn’t show the star “running around sleeping with married men.”
Some actors backed out once they learned about that storyline.
The incest scenes between the Ratliff brothers were apparently enough to dissuade at least some actors. “For that stuff with the brothers, we had to tell people beforehand,” Tucker said. She said her team asked the actors, “There is going to be some same-sex kissing and stuff. Are you comfortable with that?” and the answer wasn’t always yes. “I think maybe one kid for Sam [Nivola]’s role dropped out,” she continued, “but some of these kids were barely 18, so I could understand.” Bernad said that when they sent the scripts to Nivola and Schwarzenegger, “We were anxious... We both were like ‘I hope they don’t drop out.‘” Nivola added, “When they sent me my contract, it was like, ‘You have to be comfortable with sexually explicit scenes or whatever,’ and I was like, ‘Sure, yeah, I’ve never really done anything like that on camera—first time for everything.’ But I was not expecting that!”
They wouldn’t let Sam Rockwell say no to his big cameo.
“He passed at first,” Bernad said. “Sam is a perfectionist, and the window to do the job was very tight—two or three weeks and then this giant monologue.” Rockwell explained, “To be honest, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to pull this off,” since he was already shooting Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die in South Africa and “the monologue... was a lot.” White and Bernad had a little help with the convincing, as Rockwell’s longtime partner Leslie Bibb plays Kate in the series. “I just said, ‘If he doesn’t do it, you can’t be mad at me,‘” Bibb told the site. Though Rockwell worried he wouldn’t “have enough time to prep and get into the headspace of this character,” Bernad said, “We just didn’t let him pass. We were like, ‘Great, so when are you coming?‘”
The role of Chloe was recast—and now we know why.
Posh troublemaker Chloe was originally going to be played by Thai actress Francesca Corney, but Tucker confirmed earlier reports about why she was ultimately replaced by French-Canadian actress Charlotte Le Bon. “Had we seen people in person for these roles, we would’ve realized the original Chloe was quite petite and just going to play too young. The part was reconceived for Charlotte.” Corney filmed for several weeks before the role was retooled.
Parker Posey first realized she’d be on the show at Jennifer Coolidge’s Halloween Party.
It was after an exchange with White at Coolidge’s party that Posey was “struck” with the feeling she might get a part in The White Lotus. Posey told THR she was “alone at a cheese table at one in the morning, wondering, ‘Should I have some more cheese?‘” when she saw White. “Mike was one foot out the door, and he’s like, ‘Hi, I just want to say you’re doing such great work lately. Blah blah blah. Bye!‘” Afterward, she thought, “Maybe I’m going to be part of White Lotus. My friends were like, ‘Of course you are.‘”
Jon Gries was deadly serious about keeping his role under wraps until the season premiere.
“He was so committed to keeping it a secret,” Bernad said. “There was no press release for him, no premiere, no photos. At one point, we were going from Phuket to Bangkok, which is like a 12-hour drive, and he drove in a car with the equipment just to avoid being spotted with us at an airport.” Whenever people asked what he was going out of town to film, Gries said, “I told people I was going to the Philippines to film a new TV show for a European network.” He added, “I’m using this as a platform to apologize to everybody that I’ve lied to.”
Ultimately, White expressed his hope that all the changes will culminate in a “satisfying” finale for fans and “stick the landing.” He explained, “My hope is that it’ll feel like a cathartic sad or a satisfying sad and not a ‘What the f---?’ sad.”
But at least one of the actors is worried about the fan reaction to the finale. “People are going to hate Mike White,” Le Bon predicted.
