The newest season of The White Lotus is set to hit our screens this week - and homegrown actress Morgana O'Reilly is right in the middle of the action.
While everyone else looks forward to another season of drama and intrigue in an exotic locale, O'Reilly's feeling the full range of emotions as her on-screen career takes a significant step forward.
She can reveal she got to experience 'amazing' environments and hotels as part of the season's luxury Thailand location.
"We were in these beautiful hotels and locations on these beaches and things like that...it's just daunting to see the kinds of juggernauts that you're working with."
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You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin from News Talks EDB.
This is the Sunday Session. I'm Franchisca Rudkin with you till midday and this music can only.
Mean one thing.
It's back. The White Lotus returns to our screens tomorrow for season three, but this time us Kiwis have far more invested in the show than ever before, with our very own Morgana O'Reilly cast as one of the characters. We chatted to Morgana around this time last year after she was announced in the show, but she couldn't tell us any of the details. So she is back now to fit us in on her character and the whole experience of filming this mad show. Morgana O'Reilly, So great to talk to you again. How are you great and great?
How are you.
Feeling ahead of the release? It's tomorrow, Morgana O'Reilly in the White Lotus. How excited are you? I'm excited.
Oh my gosh, I'm excited. I'm probably not the same kind of excited as everybody else, obviously, I'm a little bit scared. I can't just watch it the way I have the last two seasons be like yay. I'm like, oh gosh, okay, there's me No, but I'm really excited. It will be the full circle, you know, from the first audition and then all there's been so many kind of big wins and flag post moments along the way. It'll be a really it'll bookend the whole thing.
And yeah, I have seen the first two episodes. I don't think you've got anything to be scared about. Tell us a little bit about your character, Pam.
Oh my goodness, you've seen the first look. You've seen more than I have. I haven't even seen the first two episodes. She is a health butler. She is Australian. She is she's assigned to assist the Ratless Ratless family, who headed by Jason Isaacs and Park Posey and their three children. Yeah, so she organizes their wellness routine.
I don't want I don't want to tell anyone anything about it because it's just so much fun watching everything unfold. But this show is it's quite out there. It's a little bit mad. What was it like being on set filming it?
Well, on set was really it was great and that felt that felt like a normal I was. I felt really a comfortable in that space. Actually on set and we're in these beautiful, beautiful hotels and locations on these beaches and things like that, and sometimes you just feel like, I mean, it's just daunting the kind of juggernauts in which you're working with, you know, like the the welcome scene in it, when you've got like Lisa from Black Pink, she's just hanging around. She's so lovely and so sweet and kind and humble. I have no idea that she's basically Beyonce. I mean, like, yeah, it was a lot, I tell you what, it was great. It was a lot of things, a lot of feelings fluctuating between so glad I'm here too, I don't belong here, and I can't bear this, to be honest.
The hotel is insane you were living Is it right that you were living there? I'm sure you mentioned that to us before you were living there while you were filming.
Yeah, yeah, So, like we had, they were all living and working at the Four Seasons in Kossimoi. So it was like a really amazingly beautiful retirement home with lots of young and healthy people who have lots of money. All they all cast and crew. So it's glorious, how idyllic. And then we also shot and pouquette at a couple of different places there, and so we'd often live and work in the in the hotel.
I wonder if it's ruined you a little bit that, you know, you get an acting gig which also just happens to be in a you know, in this incredible sort of hotel resort. Next time someone puts you up, you're going to be a bit like, oh is this that?
I know? It's so bad? I mean, you don't I need to. I need to sometimes check how much I talk about it, because I I didn't sort of even click that at a certain level of hotel, it would be crazy not to have your own private pool. I'm like, what you get one of those? Oh now I can't go back. I have to share it.
Was it relaxing having your family? I know that your family came up at one point, and I think the kids came as well. Was it relaxing having them there?
Or that's so wonderful? But then you know, like it was actually and I was wonderful to have them there because A my husband, you know, he's a director, so it was really cool for him to because we're working in this space. So it was this amazing hotel, but it was also an active film set, which is just like an absolute treat when you're in this industry because you get to go to a hotel, but you get to also like, you know, I'll be swimming in the pool, but over there is second unit just filming a couple of cutaway shots of some things that can catch you, like beautiful foliage and the ocean, things like that, so you get to sort of see a film crew over there, or you know, the kids will be playing madly in the pool, in the big shared pool with the other kids from the crew, and then you know a third, fourth or fifth ad would run down frantically and go please be quiet, please be quiet, because they're filming like fool giez. Yeah, it was great, so great.
Our screen industry here in New Zealand, it's amazing. But was it quite a different experience to other shows you've worked on when you get to work on something, you know, a smash show like this, Yeah.
Yes, yes, well no, I mean it's a multifaceted answer. I guess my point of view being on set is I felt really prepared for that bit, which was good. But then of course the resources in other areas was definitely a lot greater than I had experienced before. I also think, you know, to clarify, the New Zealand industry is kind of multifaceted as well. There is an international film industry that comes and shoots in New Zealand that often hires New Zealand crew and a smattering the bare minimum New Zealand cast. And then there is the New Zealand TV and film industry which scrapes by as much as I can and dare I say, is really on struggle street at the moment to make stuff. So whether you're you might be shooting something in New Zealand, but they can be leagues apart, whether you're shooting the Luminaries versus something for SPP, so it's profoundly different.
Yeah, how big a break for you is this? Career wise? Are you bracing yourself a potential exposure? I mean, we've always known that you're brilliant here, but you know this is sort of on a global scale, isn't it.
MORGANA, I don't know, you know what, like it's still it feels like a it feels like I'm on a big cruise ship. It's moving slow and steady and strongly. I'm currently, you know, the lead in a six part thriller's areas for Paramount, which is Heaven, and I was essentially offered that role, and I don't think that that would have happened in that way without this behind me, which is which is great. And then once it comes out, you know, I have sort of raising myself for many different realities and all of which I can deal with, all of which I'm happy for. There's a chance that I kind of get Nobody really pays too much attention. There's so many casts, so many characters, and so maybe it's just a really great thing on my CV and it gives me a little bit more money in the world, you know, and makes it easier for other productions to get people to give them money to make it because they can say, well, we've got more Guanner and she's been in White Lotus, so that's nice to help out other things. Who knows some interesting also like it. I could get absolutely ripped apart online. I don't know. I'm preparing for lots of things.
I don't think that's going to happen. But that's really interesting what you say. There's lots of little silver linings, isn't it That might not be obvious. You're not necessarily going, oh yeah, it's going to be great. You know, people are going to recognize me more and know who I am, and it's going to be easy to get jobs. Is actually it can actually trickle down a lot different ways. It could be really grateful previous shows that you've been a part of as well, you know, bringing them to light again.
That's a real that warms my heart majorly with all that. You know, I'm going to go up to the Premier year and and all this stuff, and maybe this is the key we in me. But at a certain point things feel really indulgent and they feel like I'm vying for the spotlight that I don't deserve. But the you know, the oxytocin countenance to that quartersole spike is that it lifts up everybody and everything that I am currently working on and have work done. And so that feels nice. That's great. Let's do that.
Tell me a little bit about what you are doing in Australia at the moment.
I'm doing a series called Playing Gracie Darling and it's oh, it's so cool, and especially because I just if I saw this synopsis, I was like, I would be so all aboard because it's a mystery series thriller but with a little bit of smattering of ghost story spookiness. Like there's it's a bit scary, not in a horror movie sense, but in a thriller sense. So it's a bit Mayor of East Town. It's a bit sharp objects, but nice ohasty stuff and some like flashbacks to the late nineties. Oh yeah, come home.
Say good and look just before you, guy, I want to touch base with you on where Stories about My Body is at, because we've spoken to you about that before turning it into a film. I know that there's been a bit of crowdfunding going. Have you had any time to work on that at all?
Oh my goodness. We are so close to finishing the edit and it's going to go into post production and there is music being made. There is all these wheels in motion, which like that something like that which has been such an art baby, not just for me but for my husband and all the people that are involved are our friends and dear creatives who have given their time and energy and incredible talents. So it's really close to being a little finished and then who knows that we have to find somewhere to put it. But yes, this year, I reckon.
Oh look, one step at a time. Can you do me a favorite Morgana when you turn up at that premiere? Can you just say, oh, Hi, I'm more Gana and I deserve to be here?
Oh, Kyota, Yes, I will, I will, I'll be I'll be clutching my pearls looking around the room, and I to be here.
I'm Morgana and I be.
Hi, Jennifer Cool, It's nice to bet more Ganna, and I deserve to be here. It's not my last name.
You need to work.
You need to work on that. But look, hey, thank you so much for your time. It's always really great to catch up with you and look forward to catching up with you throughout the year. Thanks you, Jessica. Don't forget that at the White Lotus. Season three starts on meon tomorrow.
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.