Next Question with Katie CouricRe-Visiting ‘The White Lotus’ with creator Mike White
Mike White is the creator of HBO’s pandemic hit, The White Lotus. With its third season in progress, we look back at a conversation with White about his life before the lux world of The White Lotus. Mike White spent his time on the periphery, creating offbeat characters in movies like ‘Chuck and Buck,’ ‘The Year of the Dog,’ ‘The Good Girl,’ and ‘School of Rock.’ He has also had a few notorious and fairly successful stints on reality tv shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race. What does all of that have to do with the success of The White Lotus? Come find out on this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric! You can stream The White Lotus on HBO Max. The final episode of the third season airs April 6.
Hi, everyone, I'm Kitty Kirk and this is next question. I am super psyched you guys, because my guest today is the creator of the show. Everyone is talking about The White Lotus.
I'm obsessed. In its second.
Season, the series follows a group of wealthy vacationers and the people who work at a stunny seaside resort in Sicily.
Welcome to the White Lotus. I am Valentina, the resorts manager.
How was it both riot?
It was?
I mean, I'm impressed that you're even here.
Why are you impressed?
It's a long trip from Los Angeles and you're quite old. No, anyway, Isabella here, We'll take you up to the hotel and bring you to your beautiful growing.
And offer you as think of that, thank you.
You're a CYPRESSA.
Before the luxe world of The White Lotus, Mike White spent much of his time on The Proof creating characters who were too loaners, weirdos, and wanderers in movies like Chuck and Buck, The Year of the Dog with Molly Shannon, The Good Girl with Jennifer Aniston, and School.
Of Rock with Jack Black.
Popular movies in their own right, but nothing like The Mean producing headline driving conspiracy, fieled chatter.
Surrounding the White lotus.
It seems like it's a new, slightly uncomfortable position for Mike to be in.
I see myself as an underdog, and I'm always like that, Like I'm always gonna see myself as like somebody who has to prove something.
So like, even in success, I still feel like I don't know. Yeah, I'm not an I don't feel like an.
Impostor, but I feel like I'm I don't know, like I you know, I slipped in through the side door or something.
Today we dive into all of it, the making of the show, the anatomy of those crazy characters, Mike's childhood, and how he really feels about his newfound fame. So let me just first start by asking what does it feel like to be Mike White these days?
Well? What a question, I you know.
I we honestly just finished the final episode. We had a very crazy shooting schedule that because of COVID and because of weather in Italy and a lot of different reasons, we went over our shoot and so I thought HBO would give us a little break and let us air later than what we were expecting and instead they were like, we need it when we need it, and so it cut into our post. So I was editing and finishing the show up until like ten days ago. So I've just been like, I'm living in Hawaii right now for tax reasons. There's a good incentive for them to do the post here, which is great. But I saw I've been kind of in a bubble. I've just been finishing the show, uh, living on an island, and so yeah, it's I don't know, I don't I don't know what it's like to but it, but it doesn't I'm not getting It's not like I'm it's not like I'm walking around la and like getting high five.
For people or anything like that. So it's it's it, but I'm but I'm excited that it's a sentence that.
The people are watching the show and liking it, and I'm definitely getting that. But it's but it's just pretty I'm still kind of living on an island and living in a bubble.
Well. Having said that, though, Mike, let's get real.
I mean you are sort of the envy of everyone in Hollywood, and this is something that you've talked about kind of willingly. In an article you did in in Vulture, you talked about Hollywood, Who's up, Who's down, kind of how people are all envious of one another, and that you're uber competitive. So have you been having said all that, Mike, have you been able to take a moment and kind of say I'm the bomb?
Oh my god, No, No, that's so not me. I but yes i am.
I'm you know, it's honestly, Katie, I feel like i'm you know, I'm fifty two years old, and I've been doing this since I was twenty two years old, and so and I've had, you know, a lot of things made and a lot of things that I thought were successful, but not at this yeah, with this kind of reaction. And so I just sort of feel like to use the like, since I'm in Hawaii, like an analogy that fits here, which is like, I feel like I'm a surfer who's been out in the ocean for a long time.
And like I caught a wave. I don't know why this wave, but like you.
Know, obviously I'm old enough and have had a long enough career to see it as yeah, a blessing but also something that you can't you know, I would never try to chase this reaction because I just it's just it's just you just never know what's gonna be yea, what people are going to respond to. So I'm excited. I'll take your word for it that that's it's it's yeah, I don't know, I'm obviously I'm happy. It's like, I mean, I was at the age where I was just like can I keep doing it? You know, like it was like maybe the old Gray Mary what she used to be, and I've got to like so like it's nice to have a little like yeah, it's it's it's definitely fun.
I'm very excited, but I don't know whatever.
Well, let's talk about the genesis of White lotus. I was at a party and I heard from a couple of Hollywood types that HBO had access to a hotel that was empty and MAUI during COVID and came to you and said, hey, Mike White, can you write a show that takes place in a hotel?
Is that how it started?
It?
Kind of?
It definitely was like they they need they had a lot of projects that had fallen apart because of COVID, and so they just they knew I was kind of fast and that like I was good with dialogue and that like maybe a show that was very that I could write a show in a bubble that was like that would maybe be immune from some of the COVID uh issues that they had come up upon. And so so they asked me to do it, like can you come up with a bubble show? But they didn't have a I was like, it was my idea to do.
It in a hotel.
And I was like, and I'm you know, I have a place in Kwai And I'm like, and I knew that there were all these hotels that were just yeah defunct and they were just had shut down because of COVID, And I was like, we could grab one of those hotels of bad in Hawaii. But they didn't even really want us to go to Hawaii because that was already to treacherous potential issues with COVID. They wanted us like they probably would have been happy and found like a hotel in like Lancaster or like you know, across the street from Casey Boyce's house or something, right, So like so yeah, I just uh so, yeah, I had to push for Hawaii.
But yeah, it was kind of a mix mix of that, and.
Tell me a little bit about how you were inspired to write really both seasons, but let's start with the first. I mean, when you sit down to write this mic, what were you trying to accomplish? I know that's kind of a big broad question, but I'm just curious. You've got a blank screen, a blank computer screen, and you decide I want to show class differences. I wanted to show really interesting characters. I think one of the things, one of many things I love about the show is that feels very current. You know, sometimes things get made and they come out a couple of years later or even a year later, and they don't feel ocurrant or of the moment. And I think White Load has felt so tuned in to current sensibilities. So just talk to me a little bit about your thought process when you put finger to keyboard.
You're talking about like the first season.
Yeah, sure, we'll talk about this second.
Yeah, the first season it was I I I you know, I've spent a lot of time in Hawaii, so you know, some of and a lot in Hawaii, there's definitely like two classes. There's the you know, the tourists and the money to people who come and like you know, have their vacations here. And then there's the service class of people who you know, can be at any you know, some of them are do very well financially, but they're all servicing these tourists. And so you you know, if you hear long enough, you get like this, you know, the you I obviously know the tourist side of it because I've been there and I you know, it's like and a lot of my friends who visit, you know, so I get that part of it. But then also you know, the service side of it. And I just felt like, you know, there's something about doing you know, because obviously hotel or like Fantasy Island, you think love Boat, like there's like a there's like a history of these kinds of shows in this kind of you know, like trying to genre exactly, but to do something that is a little bit more well observed and that kind of gets that, you know. I just thought it was like an interesting about how money, who has the money impacts relationships both obviously from the server and the you know, customer, but also you know, the husband and the wife and the father and the child and and and so it just felt like maybe as a theme that seemed rich, and so that was kind of the initial impulse because I was like, we're going to be in a hotel. You know, nobody can leave. It's kind of has to be a crucible everyone, you know. And so yeah, it kind of built out from there. And then it was just like years of maybe years of too much being online and like Twitter speak and like it was just like I was like I just.
Started freestyling as far as just like trying to get at.
Some of the I don't know, the kind of contemporary language and stuff like that.
It seems to me you're almost like an anthropologist kind of discovering and exposing human behavior. And I when I watch I wonder how much of this did Mike learn from being on reality shows how people act? Because obviously you were in Survivor. On Survivor, I understand you're a good friend of Jeff Probe's. You love reality television. You were on The Amazing Race with your dad. So did some of those experience help inform your writing for White Lotus? Am I getting too weird on these questions?
No?
Not at all.
I mean I actually what I loved when I when I you know, because I was obviously a writer before the big reality boom, which I think started like in two thousand ish and then uh, but like you know, you show like Survivor came along and you were like, wow, it was showing people, you know, one minute they would be very irritating or very petty, and then the next minute they would be very vulnerable and your heart goes out to them, and then they could be courageous, and I don't know, it was just like you would see these these I mean because they were people. It was like fully dimensional humans. And even though maybe the format could be formulaic, there was something I just as a writer, I was like.
This is this is you know this this.
Makes you want to raise your game as far as like when you are creating characters that people are watching, because it felt like they were always surprising and you were you know, you just you There wasn't some internal integrity obviously, but there was also all of these colors, and so I've always wanted to try to write characters that could match, you know, some of the great you know, personalities that you see in reality TV. So yeah, I do think that's a that's a part of it. And I just think when I was very young, starting very early, I was I was always you know, I had Sam Shepherd's mother was my second grade teacher, and she loved her son, and I loved.
Her, and so it was the first time that I.
Realized, oh, people were playwrights. So very early on I was writing little plays and so, like, I've always listened, and I've always been interested in how people talk, because I've always thought about things in terms of dialogue, and then also how what they say about themselves doesn't always necessarily match what they think and doesn't always match what they are going to do, and so that's always been interesting to me, and so I've always been kind of an observer of that.
I guess I think your childhood, though, in addition to being taught by Sam Shepherd's mother in second grade, which is a cool little fact at Trivia Fact, you grew up an evangelical household in Pasadena, and yet you were always skeptical about religion. What was your childhood like, Mike.
Well, my parents were very loving and I loved I had a very nurturing, positive, nuclear family. My dad was a minister, and we were part of a bigger, kind of more evangelical religious community.
And it was there that.
Community where it was deaf felt I always felt a little alien. I never really drunk the kool aid, as they say, and I I always yeah, it was there where you I think that I, you know, some of the you know, part of drama is is yeah, getting past the ven you know, the facade, and trying to see what people really do and what people really are like, but beyond what they say they do. And I think there's a lot of hypocrisy and a lot of those smaller evangelical communities about you know, certainly around sex and around how people you know, think about you know, what the motivations for behavior are and stuff, and so I I have so it always I always felt like I was like I always wanted to know. I was like, what's the what's the real you know, like I've always been like, you know, interested in like what really how what people do and how that that's sometimes not really in line with how they present themselves.
I think that shows up in a lot of your work. Mic I was rewatching Brad's status, and I think that was very effective in terms of this inner turmoil Brad aka Ben Stiller is experiencing. Comparing him his station in life to all of his college friends who were doing much better. And I think that external internal conflict is something it seems to me that you go back to. And I read that when you were eleven year dad came out to your family. He was a minister, as you mentioned, but also a gross writer for people like Jerry Folwell and Tammy Baker, and you once said finding out about your dad's sexuality is quote the key to everything I write.
How So, yeah, well, just in the sense of what I was just talking about, which is, you know, it's a big rug to be pulled from under you where you know, you think your family is this thing, and your dad is this thing, and he's a minister, and then you realize there's this other, whole other side, which isn't necessarily a dark side, it's just a truth. And the truth is in contradiction to what he's supposed to be in the world. And and so I think, you know, exploring that and and and and I think that that, yeah, that just just to me, it's just you know, obviously it hit home in a literal way, just that you know, we are more complicated than we present ourselves, and that we put a certain face to our community and that that maybe in drama and showing some of that. Obviously there's a titillation part of it, but then there's like a maybe some kind of solace to know that, like everybody is grappling with this, like that the person that we want to be and the person that the world wants us to be, we're not always that and that's okay and that's human.
And that kind of thing.
You I went to Wesleyan, I know, and you said you finally found your people there. So how did Wesleyan affect you, not only as a person but as a writer.
Well, I was in a kind of more homogeneous community growing up in high school, you know, and grade school, and so going to Wesleyan, you know, it was a very open minded, liberal community in general, and also just these kids were so sophisticated. It was like I was just like I just felt like I was like behind the curve, you know. I was kind of a self taught I mean, I was just I mean I went to a good school, but it was like as far as culture and stuff, I was just I was, you know, I like had my own like subscription to The New Yorker for I was just trying to find my way through the culture, and so, like I would, I went to Wesleyan all these you know, a lot of I mean it was a lot of New York Jewish kids who are like very like fully baked and fully like you know, you know, like new fancy people. And I was just like, I kind of was just I felt like a rube. But I but I was so enamored by the yeah, the whole vibe there and the still to this day, a lot of those kids I met there are are my my friend group.
And when you when you graduated from wesley and were you really interested in playwriting or just writing in general.
Well, I wanted to be a playwright. I wanted to be Sam Shepherd.
I went from California to you know, to Wesseleyan, and I was like, I didn't have socks. I realized how cold it was back East. I was like, this is too cold for me. Like I so I was like, I was like, my plan was to go to New York and be was starring playwright.
But I was like, I don't know if I could handle this weather.
I was like, so, I like kind of I fell into the wrong crowd and came back to la I was started writing for for movies and TV.
After the break, Let's go to Sicily.
When you look back at your quote unquote body of work, Mike, wait, do you notice any kind of thread that connects a lot of these stories when you think about it.
I don't know, me I have a thread. I don't know there.
I mean, it's an idiosyncratic body of work.
And I and I'm.
Proud, like I one thing that I always was like, I'm not going to take myself so seriously that I miss out on anything like and that's how That's why I did Survivor. It's why I did amazing race, It's why I've taken jobs that I don't know. It's like, you know, like I always thought that I I mean, if now now I do sound like a whatever. I just you know, it's like I always thought I was talented. I always felt like I had some the offer. I always felt like I was, you know, like I like you said I was. You know, I've said I'm competitive, Like I would see peers who like you know, caught the wave and got a lot of like attention and success, and I was like I could do that.
I'm beat. I'm I'm as good or better than those people. And in the you know, of.
Course, that's that's the that's the gumption that you need to get through Hollywood by like and so so.
But at the same time, I was just like, I'm not.
Gonna be I met people early on who had careers that I admired, and a lot of them seemed miserable or they seem like they were really in a you know, protective of their you know, like they they I don't know, they that in order to be serious taken seriously, they had to kind of have a serious vibe.
And it's like, we're in the we're in the we're in the you know.
I I think our work is meaningful, but like we are in the in the sort of we're in the kids section in a sense, you know what I mean.
We're not we're not you know.
We're not curing cancer.
Yeah, we're not curing cancer. We're not in the policy we're not policy wants.
We're not.
It's like we are you know, we're in the we're in the entertainment section, do you know what I mean. So it's like and so I just was like, I I just don't I want to I want to be successful, and I want people to think I'm talented, but I also I want to I want to live a life that I look back on and the life itself was cool and the and the things I did were cool, and it's not just my work. So so like I look at those all those different things, and it's like it's it's an eclectic it's like it's kind of a hot mess, like a bunch of credits.
But I I each one of them.
I got different things out of and and and yeah, I had served different purposes for me.
But right now you are in a very different position, Mike, because I'm sure everyone in Hollywood is saying that Mike White, he can write his own ticket. Now he can kind of do whatever he wants, which I think makes you a little uncomfortable.
Well, I don't know.
I feel like this is like it's like I'm waking up in Hawaii and it's like Katie Kirk is here to tell you everything has changed.
Everything is feist, Mike.
No, Well, I I appreciate you saying that, and I and I you know, I actually feel like I if that's true. I feel like I feel like I'm like somebody who's been ready to be at bat for a long time. And I've done it, you know, like you know, and I've I've done things I'm proud of. But like I've it's always been swimming upstream to get the financing, to get the actor, to get the thing to the you know, like it's it's and that's part of the fun, I guess, but it's also part it's there's wear and tear. So it's like, if it's an easier road to do the things I want to do, I'm ready to do more and I have more to say, and I you know, like and it's and and this was hard. Uh, it took a lot out of me, especially this last season. But this is what I always wanted to do, and so I'm grateful that I have the opportunity.
To do it.
Are you having fun, Mike?
I am having fun. I'm having fun talking to you.
I'm here in Hawaii, I'm you know, I've gotten through the season and everyone's you know, chatting about so that's fun.
But I also I need to reboot a little bit.
I don't have a lot of gas in the tank, so I need to figure out how to I don't know whatever, unplug and refresh or something.
Let's talk about this current season of White Lotus, because I'm worried, Mike, I'm worried about the characters White. I'm really worried. I'm I'm really worried. I'm worried about Portia. I'm really worried about Tanya. I'm worried about is it alb. I mean, I'm worried about everyone. What are you doing to us, Mike?
Well, the fun thing about Yeah, what I like about this format is that, like I like I kind of like a slow simmer, you know, so it's it's fun.
We you know.
I think the pleasure of this one, then, certainly this season and last season too, I think, is like, you know, you hope you create very credible characters, and you create a situation that like you're like it passes the bull shit detector to some degree, and and that and then and then just start to like cook up the gap, you know, like turn up the heat just so it's like, you know, it's like almost like when you're on the yeah roller coaster and you're like chit chit chick and you're like going up, and you're like this is gonna.
Go really far down like we are really going check.
So yeah, and I think the finale hopefully will satisfy h the Catharsis, and I mean, yeah, there's gonna be a lot of there's gonna be a lot of gnashing of teeth and it's yeah, but yeah, you should be worried.
I keep thinking about that story of the woman that fell that they threw off the mountain.
Oh.
I also keep worrying about the the wife of the cheesy finance guy saying, Oh, you're going to die here. They're going to have to drag you out of this place. I keep thinking, oh, what does that mean?
Have my right to pick up on some of these things?
I mean, well, some of.
Them are intentional to build for the finale and some are a little bit misdirects so that people think, Yeah, you want people to like feel like they're you know, Miss Marple and they've got the clues, but you need extra clues.
You know, it's not so obvious what happens.
But I think people, I think even if you guess, you're going to be surprised with just how it all falls apart.
I love the way you use art interchangeably. First of all, obviously you're obsessed with kind of those water shots, which I really like too, but I love I love the painting, the artifacts, the architecture, the shots of the porcelain head, of that same porcelain head guy that.
You keep going back to again and again.
Tell me your thought process about using that as a way to propel the story forward or to foreshadow things, or to echo what might be going on at the time. Yeah, can you tell, I've been watching very intimly.
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, well, the test is tomorrows.
When I got there, I was like, because they're everywhere in Sicily, those heads, and the story behind it has to and the reason for the whole season was because of these heads.
I was like, because I would go around like, these heads are everywhere, and it was.
About adultery and violence and sexual jealousy, and I was like that just I had a different idea for the second season.
I was like, no, we got to.
Do an operatic like Italian in sexual jealousy storyline.
I mean, it's like, that's that's what people want to see anyway.
But also, this is the part of my job that people should be jealous of, which is I go to Sicily, I'm telling them.
I'm doing White Lotus.
All of the rich like Sicilians who have these pulazzos are willing to let me come in and like snoop around their house. I got to see all these and so like two of them ended up in the show. But like you walk around and you have no idea that behind this, like you know edifice is like this incredible palazzo.
They're all A lot of them are hidden.
It's like and then to be able to like get access to those and see them, and I was like, we gotta, like, you know, so when we would get into these places, I was like, we gotta shoot. We gotta just like fire hose this down, Like we gotta get every piece of art on the walls, like we gotta do pushions on all of the you know. So for someone who like you know, likes interior, you know whatever, like these kind of like classic maxim list eclectic like you know, like rich you know palazzas, Like I was just like I was in heaven.
So I just felt like I had to make the most of it.
And I mean it must have been an extraordinary place to film. And is that a real hotel? Was that hotel vacant? As well, or tell me about the location. I want to go to that hotel.
Yeah, you should.
It's it's the Santa Manico Palace, which is like a very historical It was originally a convent and then it turned into a hotel, but it's been a hotel for quite a long time. And lab and Truro was shot there. It's like, it's it's a it's amazing because obviously, you know, I got we we looked at a lot of different hotels and it's just like, first the convent part of it just gives it this added kind of you know, vibe, and then.
You know, you see these terraced.
Hills with all these different you know villas you know that are so classic in European and and then you have the Greek theater on one side, and then the Ionian Sea in front, and then the Mount Etna, which is literally you know, belching smoke half the time, and you're just like, this is if we're going to go to Europe, this is what you go for.
You go for these views.
So it's definitely I highly recommend Tarmina and Sicily itself. It's like you really can't spend enough time there. It's like as each you know, it was just after a few days it was like I was like, okay, we've done this sight seeing, but like it's just like then there's just this like vibe over time that just really seduces you.
Did you find Lucia and Mia in Sicily?
No, we found them in Rome.
Simona, who plays Lucia is actually from Naples and Mia is from Rome. But we had a great set of casting directors from Italy who brought us a lot of options, and those two and Sabrina Impatriatory who plays the manager, they're all they were all incredible and so fun to work with.
Yeah, they were fun to watch, I'll tell you that. And I know that you have said that the show satirizes wealthy, white privilege, and you've said that your intention was to quote unquote poke the bear, but through a humanist perspective. So help us out with that, Mike, what did you mean.
Well, poke the bear?
I don't you know, obviously I'm satirizing privilege, but you know, especially with the first season, I also was poking the bear as far as some of the I don't know, like I wanted to give voice to both, you know, the critiques of the patriarchy and all of these things that you know, we are discussing, you know, had have been discussing with fervor the last couple of years.
But also give.
Voice to the people that are you know, it's like, you know, I have hearing you know, like like some of the conversations that I'm hearing that people don't want to say in public but like behind closed doors, and try to you know, like not you know, make it so you're kind of walking the line where okay, well that sort of is a fair point and then like, oh yeah, but you're saying that because this is you know, you're you're defending, you know, you're on your heels.
So like trying to make it so it's not so such a simple, pre.
Digested conversation and and have those conversations be.
Lively and like you.
Know, multi layered, multi layered enough that like people feel like, oh they're they're being seen and then and it's still challenged and so and that was that was what I was trying to do.
And you know, like and and the fact.
That like people on both sides of some of these arguments, like champion the show or also like hated the show, it made me feel like I did my job.
Yeah, so you're you're really showing some of those tricky conversations that people do have behind closed doors. And I think that that's what contributes Mike to the realness of the show and the dialogue that you know, you feel like this is what people really are talking about, and that you're not following some kind of prescriptive dialogue to be on the right side of any issue.
Yeah, because I don't even I don't even It's like, ultimately, it's like, I don't think it's the dramatist job to it's I don't think it's it's a message conveying machine. If I was trying to make a message, then I would be communicating in a different medium or a different kind of Uh. It's really about giving voice to the different people who exist in our world and try, you know, do my best to make it feel like it's a you know, a dimensional conversation.
After the break, why Mike spends so much time in the gray areas of human behavior. I know that a lot of people had taken note that your characters, so many of them are just unlikable or complicated, or there are certain things you like, and certain things you really don't like, so you feel conflicted. And I feel very conflicted about Tanya. I really disliked her at the end of last season, and now I don't dislike her. I feel sorry for her because she's quite pathetic, but she's also sort of lovable too.
Yeah, well, I mean yeah, I mean well, Jennifer Coolidge is lovable period, and so she brings the lovability for sure. But yeah, I do think it's like I, especially the first season, you know, I wanted there to be two tracks, which is, you know, her as the underdog who's looking for love and dealing with the fact that her mom died and you know the pain of that, and so on one side you're rooting for her, and then there's this other story where she's kind of dangling this carrot over this other woman's you know eye sure and future and making her feel like there's hope for something, and then she's kind of a flake.
And that just seems very true to life for me.
To some of these women that I've met and or you know man too, But just like where you know, they see themselves as a victim in some sense and.
Then savior or savior or savior.
Yeah, and and they don't see how that they can also be victimizing and that they that they yeah, that they they have agency and that they.
Are yeah, that they are somehow blowing it.
Let me ask you about some of the other characters in kind of a rapid fire way. We talked about Mia and Lucia, and we talked about Valentina. Let's talk about Porsia. And I love this discussion online about Porsia's clothes.
Have you seen this, Mike, I, Oh, yeah, yeah.
That she dresses like a gen Z threat store, Like nothing really goes together, like it doesn't look good or not.
I mean, what do you think of all that? It's so funny.
Well, a lot of the credit goes to I mean, that was her character on the page, but Haley Lou Richardson, who's the actress, and then Alex Baverd, who is our costume designer, you know, are the true geniuses behind her looks. And you know, I'm I'm a little bit like, I'm women's fashion is not my gough to.
But I but I but I I.
Did weigh in, I did weigh in, I approved, I supervised, but I but yeah, I just think that you know, to me, Portia is somebody who I see this a lot, and this was something that I feel like online I think is the thing that I I find interesting is that there's a lot of people who are like rich, you know, like bad bad rich people. Rich people are terrible, you know, like it's this like this kind of like you know that that I that I'm allowed to make the show as long as I show how bad rich people are.
That the moral of the story is that rich people are better something.
And it's like and and and obviously you know, there is there's truth to that, like a lot of rich people are fugging up the world, and so like I you know, but but I also you know, you you and so like I guess Porsche was like a vehicle to explore how she sees in Tanya all of these bad character traits and that she, you know, if and if she had what Tanya had, she would have her life together and she would be she you know, like she would be she wouldn't do it better than Tanya. But you see how in her own way she's she is kind of lost in in a similar way, she's actually kind of a mini me to Tanya, and.
In fact, Tanya tells Porsia, you remind me a lot of myself when I was younger. But I also think Porscha is very gen z and that she's sort of a little bit lost and just doesn't know what she wants to do. She doesn't really have any goals. She's trying to figure it out. Did that I mean, do you know young people like that that kind of helped shape that character.
Yeah, I do think.
I mean again, I don't want to get crucified, but I do think I've noticed in this younger generation a desire to try on identities and feel like there's something like, like, I don't know, courageous about about identity as a way to express yourself through whatever, like through the way you talk about yourself or the clothes you wear or whatever. But like, ultimately it is very naval gazing, and it adds to I think.
Adds to malaise. I think it actually it makes.
Your It's like the more you start, like, yeah, like talking about yourself and thinking about yourself along these lines, it actually just exacerbates the problem that you're trying to solve. So like I think a little bit of Porsche comes through and that I mean, I I I, you know, like I don't want to think that I'm totally you know, but like she's just like I want this and I don't know if I just want to you've fulfilled and it's like, you know, it's just there's just something about that that is just yeah, it's maybe it's yeah, maybe it's agism. Maybe I'm just like I've become the person who makes you. But like I just when I was younger, it was just like it's it to me. I still feel like it's like you mean to like move outside of yourself, to like find courage and move outside of your own you know, it's like your own navel gazing to really then fully develop.
You know.
It's like if you're just always looking inside and doing selfies and and calling yourself a different thing, and it's all about the clothes you're wearing, you know, it's like that that just feels like that's a that's going to be a dead end road.
So that's Porsia.
And what about the foursome of Harper, Ethan, Cameron, and Daphne. I have to say, I think Aubrey Plaza is my favorite character in the whole show. I like her perpetual state of ONWII that is now kind of morphed into something else all together. And I love what you're doing about jealousy with ethan and and Harper. So tell me a little bit about Harper's character.
Well, I Aubrey is a friend of mine and I wanted to get her in the show. So a little bit of it started with just like, you know, Aubrey is a very complicated, interesting person, but she's kind of known for this sort of dead like the way she comes in at the beginning is kind of like maybe the way people see her or what thing they think that she's gonna be if she joins the white Lotus world, but then start to show these other kind of more vulnerable sides and that her toughness is a little bit of a front and and but I liked, you know, like what I was trying to do with that whole storyline is, you know, it has to do with it's kind of what brad status was as far as status, but like with sec like what that we're always comparing ourselves in our relationship to other people's relationships and what they have and what they it seems like they you know, like what they do better what they do worse?
And how how?
And I was kind of playing a little bit at the beginning where it's like you think, okay, here's start like NPR listening like you know, liberal, like you know, like these are the good guys that are going to relate to and then this other couple they're so vacuous and you know, it's like but then kind of playing a little bit with which is maybe that other couple is like dysfunctional and crazy.
It's like, well they seem to be having more fun.
Like you know, like that that that maybe you know, like maybe it's not as as simple as all of that, and and I don't want to give away the ending, but yeah, how it all, How it all lands is kind of a little bit of insight into what I'm trying to not say, but like, yeah.
Try to reveal something a little bit more unexpected. I guess it.
Also seems to be a bit of a commentary on tech and finance bros.
Yeah, well, I just think.
New money, new money status.
Competition, that weird sort of dance you play when you're financially dependent on someone, which it seems like Cameron is sort of needs Ethan because He's made a boatload of money in tech, right, there's something weird about that dynamic.
Well, I definitely.
I as a guy, I've been privy to lots of conversations over the years. I live like next to Brentwood, so there's just like you know, the Brentwood Country Mart where like lawyers and finance people and whatever like people in my industry or whatever, and how they're buddies. But like even in the in every conversation, you just sense this peacockying and like they're trying to figure out like where they stand as far as who's making them more money, you know, who makes like where? Yeah, it's uh, And so that's always very funny to me because I I.
Don't I whatever, it's yeah.
So yeah, it was kind of playing with like yeah, they're friends, but like are they friends?
Like what are they? Like?
Like the competition is so heavy that it's just like can they ever really be friends? You know?
Yeah?
I find that whole sort of foursome fascinating And I love f Marie Abraham, which I mean, by the way, what a what a feather in your cap to get him to be in white Lotus. And then you've got from the sopranos. You've got Michael Imperio. Imperio can help me.
With that, Michael Imperially Yeah, and.
Who plays his son. And then you have Adam DeMarco who plays Albi. Uh so you have these three generations of Italian Americans.
Yeah, so yeah, yeah.
Well, first of all, yes, Murray and Michael are I'm huge I was the huge fans of prior and then working with them even more so. Murray is like, you know, he's I think he's eighty two years old and he's so still like enamored with the process and acting and storytelling and it's inspiring.
And Michael is one of the most he's in.
The pantheon of like the easiest, most like generous actors I've ever worked with. So like, those two are incredible. And then of course Adam de mark is one of the sweetest kids. So like they were a great group. But like contextually, as far as the ideas of that, I just feel like, you know, I wanted you know, it's kind of getting into male sexuality and desire and male role, you know, the role like you know, men's roles when it comes to romance and how they deal with the women and and just voicing the different generational attitudes in a kind of classic way, and how they're all kind of even though they're all sort of negotiating with the new ways of talking about relationships and sex and interactions with women, that they're all kind of trapped in a certain sense.
To Derek, who works on this podcast, who's one of the producers, talked about how this season portrays a wide variety of sexual relationships and entanglements, and you were just talking about sex, just as the opening title sequence portrays increasing debauchery in the art, as the rollicking theme song plays, the show itself feels like it's revealing more and more about the ways that humans experience their sexuality or suppress it or given to it or both. Even these are Derek's observations, and I'm curious what you think of that, and sort of how you were trying to portray different just different kinds of relationships. And for example, you portray sex workers, you know, Lucia and Mia, very differently than kind of what we normally see in TV books or movies.
Well, I, you know, with the title sequence, I basically said, you know, it should start with these kind of pretty you know, like like you're going into a palazzo and the beautiful walls, and then you start seeing little things in the corners and you realize there's this kind of mischievous or even kind of creeper purvy like sexual things that are happening in the margins.
And then by the end of the credit sequence, it's almost like a.
Bosch painting of like just you know, and where you know, the carnality of it and the desire of it is like front and center. And I felt like that with the season two, which is like you start off and it's like, you know, a little bit of these repressed people trying to like you know, figure out, like you know, how to have a good vacation, and that like being in insight to of sicily and in this kind of little crucible that like the desire and you start seeing desire and everyone and it's yeah, it becomes a very horny show.
And I just felt like it was like and especially like you know, like and as far as like uh.
Yeah, I mean and I I yeah, you know, I don't. I don't think I'll always write stories like this. It's not certainly my wheelhouse, like directing scenes of like intimacy between people and like getting people nude and stuff.
It's just like I was like, you know, like I was like, this is not something I'm doing. Yeah, I was like, whatever you guys want to do?
Like what faithfully, you know, when you hire actors that are exhibitionists, they're often less inhibited than I am. So like they're like, you want me to take my top off? Yeah, sure, if that's good, Sure there's cook yeah. So like so yeah, so that was but I but I but I do feel like it was like it's fun to show I actually think it's fun to show women horny horny women because I feel like that sometimes is something that like, you know, a lot of times in in drama it's like they're either victimized or virginal or like I don't know it, or it's like this kind of like you know, like they'll talk it's like sex in the city. It's like it is it's very like talky, but like you know, where you're actually feeling the desire and feeling the you know. It's like and you know, to me, that just feels true to life in a way.
I guess I don't know what else to put it. But anyway.
So so yeah, so I just thought it was like, let's do sex, let's just go all in, and and that was kind of the I was like, if we're going to go all in, it's like by the end, you just want to feel like, yeah, the animal in the in each of these.
Human characters.
So this is the big question. Is there going to be a White Law is three? Is there going to be a third season?
Yes, they picked us up for a third season.
Yeah, so yes, where Mike, where?
Well, I want to go to Asia, That's what I think.
Look, I mean it feels like, you know, you start in like America they do, Europe feels like the next one would be.
I don't know. I don't know why that feels that.
It's just like I'm trying to think, like, like, yeah, where does Katie Current go on vacation for you?
Tell me? Actually, I you know what. I ran into you once on vacation.
I was in Yeah, I was in Berlin, staying at a classic old hotel in the middle Berlin, I forget the name of it. And you were staying there at the same time with Io. Ran into you. I ran I think we were like there the same days or whatever. Because I ran into you. You're very friendly. You seem like you're having a good time. He's still like smiling, good, great, and yeah, you guys. I don't know if you were there for work or vacation or whatever, but you were you were there for vacation.
And you know, my husband John is a huge Survivor nut. I mean, he has seen every season. He finds it fascinating. So he loves you from Survivor.
Oh that's cool.
Well, I think it was prior to me doing Survivor it was you were it might I think it was what didn't Yeah.
Why I got married in twenty fourteen, so it was prob.
I think it was like after that, it was like twenty fifteen.
Yeah, it was twenty twenty sixteen. Maybe twenty fifteen.
Yeah, I did Survivor twenty seventeen.
Oh okay, Well, now.
You seem very you know, you seem like you had happy energy.
I liked I liked you from just the vibe.
Oh that's so nice. Well you is it.
I don't want to spoil the finale, but do you think we'll see Tanya in the third season?
I love well, I love I love writing Tanya, and I love I love working with Jennifer, so definitely could be.
You can't tell me. If you tell me, you'd have to kill me, right, Mike, Why.
What do you mean you want to dies? Well? You never know. Could be I'm not telling you, you know, I don't want to ruin it.
A huge thank you to my guest Mike White. I imagine you're all tuning in this Sunday, December eleventh for the finale to find out who makes it out of the White Lotus alive. If not, whenever you're listening to this, Happy Benjin.
Next Question with.
Katie Kirk is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Kirk Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kirk, and Courtney Ltz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hanson. Associate producers Derek Clements and Adriana Fazio. The show is edited and mixed by Derek Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me at Katie correct on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
