How The White Lotus' third season was inspired by Thailand, astrology and reality TV

Natasha Rothwell was nominated for an Outstanding Supporting Actress Emmy thanks to her breakout role as Belinda Lindsey.

A few years ago Natasha Rothwell was invited out for dinner. It was Emmys week and Mike White, the creator of the satirical social dramedy The White Lotus, was in town and had given her a call. Rothwell was buzzing after being nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress thanks to her breakout role as Belinda Lindsey in the series, while the show itself was up for a whopping 11 awards.

Despite this success, she was not starring in the second season. The show is styled like an anthology, with a new cast of guests checking into the titular luxury resort each season. So when White called Rothwell she thought it’d just be a celebratory meal with an old friend. Little did she know he had an ulterior motive.

“Mike wanted to go out to dinner. I didn’t think anything of it,” she recalls. “[At dinner] he said, ‘I’m already thinking about season three. I might want to bring Belinda back. What do you think?’”

The show is styled like an anthology with a new cast of guests checking into the titular luxury resort each season.

She didn’t think for long.

“I was just like, ‘Say less. Let me get my passport together,’” she laughs. “I was thrilled because I really had no expectation of Belinda coming back.”

After dinner came an agonising, years-long wait as White finished work on season two. Eventually, a couple of years after that fateful dinner, she was on her way to Thailand.

Things were different for Aimee Lou Wood, the Bafta-winning English actress who is one of the new guests checking in this season. The star of the popular dramedy Sex Education plays Chelsea, a wide-eyed, young romantic deeply in love with Rick, a troubled older man.

While preparing for her audition, Wood had become obsessed with the couple and the dynamic of their relationship. Her excitement was exacerbated when she found out producers were looking to cast Walton Goggins as Rick.

Aimee Lou Wood is one of the new guests checking in this season.

“I was so excited because I just knew it was going to fit,” she enthuses. “He’s a Scorpio sun and I’m a Scorpio moon. There was just, honestly, some weird cosmic thing there. We never did a chemistry test or anything like that. Mike is just so intuitive [with casting] that he knows what energies will work well together.”

Then a thought flashes across her face, causing her to pause for a second, before offering the darker flipside of what she just said.

“I got told they wanted my Chelsea specifically for Walton’s Rick. If it hadn’t been Walton as Rick, then I might not have ever got Chelsea.”

Call it fate, masterful planning or the rising of the moon in Scorpio but on-screen, the pair bounce off each other wonderfully, Wood’s hopeless romantic trying to break through the grumpy barrier of her much older partner. While the pair may look out of place – he’s old enough to be her dad – in the elite real-life resorts the titular chain is based on, their pairing would not raise eyebrows.

“I’m really into a lot of relationship therapy podcasts so I have a lot of awareness around when something is dysfunctional or not healthy,” she says. “So I had to ignore it all because Chelsea’s mindset is, ‘He is my soulmate. The cosmos has brought us together’, even though, bless her, there’s not much evidence pointing in that direction other than her feelings. I had to take the moralising out of it and be like, she’s in love and love drives us crazy.”

The White Lotus was filmed at the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui in Thailand.

Filming took place at the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui in Thailand, with the cast and crew all moving in for around three months. This lends the show a grounded realism to its dark fiction, but it also had another, more unusual, effect on its ensemble cast.

“We lived where we filmed so it could all start to feel a bit like a reality show,” Wood grins. “Mike loves reality TV. So that makes sense. You know, he’s been on two himself as a contestant.”

It’s true. The creator and showrunner of one of today’s most respected shows competed in two seasons of the reality stalwarts The Amazing Race and almost went the distance on a season of Survivor.

Rothwell and Wood say living in Thailand for months and being immersed in such a different culture had a profound impact.

“Something I learned while I was there is that Thailand has never been colonised,” Rothwell reflects.

There’s a touch of sadness in her voice when she says, “And when you’re living and working in a space surrounded by a culture that isn’t constantly trying to heal from historical trauma, there’s a lightness and a freedom that I have not experienced in the continental US.”

To explain what she means, she doesn’t look to grand gestures, instead, she uses the small example of a simple greeting.

Filming in Thailand had an unusual effect on the show's ensemble cast.

“The way you speak to each other and say, ‘Hello’, you identify yourself as ‘male’ or ‘female’ or ‘other’. It’s not something that has to be asked. It’s built into the language that you are in control of how you identify,” she says. “There are all these subtle ways that Thailand welcomes you as you are.”

“And there’s way less ego,” Wood adds, as Rothwell nods in agreement. “I think because of the Buddhism and the fact that it’s so about the collective. You just don’t encounter that in London. There, it’s this urgency culture. Everyone’s rushing around and trying to prove themselves and self-promote.”

She sighs and then says, “It was so nice to have everyone connecting. It’s more about your consciousness instead of your ego. Which is a huge difference. And an amazing difference.”

“And the food is amazing!” Rothwell laughs. “I mean, outside of it being a spiritual oasis, it’s also a really great place to get some Pad See Ew.”

The third season of The White Lotus is returning to your screens.

LOWDOWN

Who: Actors Natasha Rothwell and Aimee Lou Wood.

What: The third season of returning favourite The White Lotus.

When: The social satire starts on Monday, available on Neon from 4pm, and on Sky’s HBO at 8.30pm. New episodes available weekly.

Many familiar faces are coming back this season.

CHECKING IN

Meet the stars checking in this season:

Walton Goggins is Rick, the grumpy older partner of Chelsea, who has dark reasons for visiting the resort.

Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon and Michelle Monaghan are three old school friends on a girls' trip abroad whose teenage dynamics quickly return.

Parker Posey and Jason Isaacs are a wealthy, medicated, Republican couple who have brought their three children to the resort. Sarah Catherine Hook, Sam Nivol and Patrick Schwarzenegger (real-life son of Arnie) star as the kids who have very different/disturbing life experiences in Thailand.

New Zealand’s Morgana O’Reilly, and Lalisa Manoba, and Tayme Thapthimthong play staff members of the resort, while Lek Patravadi stars as the resort’s famous co-owner.