Ep. 2: “Special Treatments” with Tayme Thapthimthong, Lalisa Manobal and Sam Nivola

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Pack your bags with Abercrombie & Fitch. My friend is Jacqueline Lemon.
Who's that? She's an actress. She's famous.

I wish I'd be impressed.

Actresses are all basically prostitutes.

If they're lucky. Am I right?

Hello and welcome to the White Lotus Official Podcast companion to Season 3. I'm Gia Tolentino.
And I'm Josh Behrman. And I'm here to warn you that if you haven't watched Episode 2 of Season 3, watch it right now before listening to this, because we will spoil every single beat of the episode for you.
Yes. Although this may be the last warning because by now you probably know how podcasts work.
Yeah. And later on in this episode, we're going to be speaking with Tame Taptim Tong and Lalisa Manavall who play Guy Talk and Mook and Sam Nivola who plays the youngest Ratliff, Lachlan.
Josh, I have a question for you before we get into all of this. This is my toxic sex in the city assortative behavior question.
After following these characters for two episodes, who are you? Are you still Goggins? Yeah, yeah. I'm now stronger in the Goggins direction.
When he gets into the treatment center and is there in this kind of spiritual repartee with the guru there. I don't need to detach.
I'm already nothing. Even nothing can be an illusion you tell yourself.
That's when I was like, oh yeah, now I get it. That's where I fit in.
Who are you identifying with? I'm lessening on my Chelsea identification. It's really the party girl aspect of her that I connect with.
But she is a little bit more naive and sweet in this episode than I am necessarily. I unfortunately am beginning to identify more with the three women who are constantly talking shit about each other.
And where do you land in that trio? Oh, God. Well, unfortunately, I'm not, I mean, I'm not a Laurie.
I've never been a Laurie. Just kidding.
I probably have been a Laurie at times in my past. It is one of the women that are eager to be the alpha.
This episode is called Special Treatments, and it's once again written and directed by Mike White. The episode starts where the last episode ends, which is like after Carrie Coon has gone to bed.
And Kate and Jacqueline, Leslie Bibb and Michelle Monaghan, can really get into the gossip. And the dynamic on display between these three women is that everything that they are doing when it's the three of them together is completely fake.
And then as soon as one of them leaves, they snap into the mode of truth telling. They probably console themselves by believing that their gossip is actually a form of caring because they're talking about, oh, poor things, you know, went through this troubled time.
But it's not really constructive, compassionate. It's because they don't do anything.
There's no action taken. And then later, the other leg of the stool is present when it's Lori and Kate.
Talking about Michelle Monaghan. Yeah, exactly.
And then it seemed like she picks up that they're talking about her explicitly, right? They're trying to basically undo that facade brick by brick in the conversation they were having just before. And then the whole thing with the husband.
Yes. There's something weird there, right? She goes on and on.
They're so in love. They're addicted to each other.
But I mean, are they ever even in the same city? I don't think they ever see each other. Yeah.
And now we don't, we just have to wait for the shit talk about Leslie Piv. I can't wait to hear what that is.
But it's like you find out in the, when they're talking about Jacqueline, that it's like both of those women have been profoundly sexually unfulfilled for a long time. And you find it out just in the way that they kind of talk.
Right, right. Also, I mean, I feel it's, again, I feel like it's difficult to watch, but it's also, I think the writing is sympathetic to the characters, like they're not malevolent.
They're all doing, it's all kind of self-preservation, right? Because you're feeling these instincts of comparison and your emotional hackles are up, but based on your friend's success or not. And so there's this compulsion, basically, to try to then measure yourself and rebalance it by having your side gossip or introducing a negative thought about the other friend to the third one, right? It's like this natural sort of self-preservation.

I also loved their interaction with Fabian, the hotel

director. Oh my god.
When he comes

over and reveals that he too would

love to perform. No, no.

Yeah? Come on.

That would be crazy.

I wouldn't dare. Come on, get up there.

No.

I'm the boss. So maybe, maybe one day.
I'm obsessed with him. I'm obsessed with him.
When he, when his eye, when he drifts away to this, what you know is a montage in his head of him, like, you know, like, Falia, just him, like, taking the stage in a grand review with feathers and diamonds everywhere.

Right, like emerging out of like a giant clamshell. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Also, I am very thrown off by the fact that this is the same actor who plays Rudolf Huss, the Auschwitz commandant in Zone of Interest. Wow.
And it's— His range. Yeah.
So I'm excited to see where Fabian winds up. So we have also a scene with Mook and Guy Talk, the Thai staff.
He really blew it there. I know.
He pulled the fishhook before it was baited. Like he didn't even, that was, he basically asked her to marry him, you know, like elliptically without any context or preface.
As she said, we've never been on a date. Oh, but I've, you know, obviously everybody's going to be shipping these two.
I know. Well, but then he kind of wins her sympathy again because there is a actually truly surprising interlude in here.
With the robbery. With the robbery where Valentin is distracting Guy Tuck at the gate.
Yes. It appears like there's a deception operation here so that a car can get in and there's mass dudes running with guns and steal.
They just steal some jewelry. I'm like, that's not that much stuff.
You know? You don't even get a cash register. It's never established that really expensive.
It must be expensive. I guess it must be expensive.
She really wants that snake choker. I know.
I think we're going to get that back. Let that snake choker.
It's just going to reoccur. Yeah.
But we got the gun. I mean, I was surprised that we physically saw a gun.
I was expecting to not see the gun until the last episode. I mean, who knows if it's the same gun, et cetera.
But I enjoyed it when we saw a gun. But so on the way back out.
He gets pistol whipped. Yeah.
You gasped. You were like, oh, no.
Yeah, yeah. You were I? Yeah, yeah.
I'm not squeamish about violence, but I hate the sound of something colliding with the head. But clearly, Mook is attracted to more aggressive signs of masculinity.
She's kind of interested in the dirtbag bodyguards or whatever, right? She is giving all of the classic signals of this nice man is too gentle to me, and I don't like that. It's interesting.

Quick side note, that guy, the real guy, is like a special forces.

Really?

It's like a military guy.

Really?

And yeah, and you can tell.

Like if you meet him, he's not like that character at all. Well, that's so funny.

Right.

But so once he is sort of bandaged up, she comes to him and is like,

I was so worried or whatever, right?

Yeah.

I know. That's so sweet.
Yeah. Well, I'm hoping for them.
I was struck by something with the robbery. What happens just after is the classic White Lotus dinner seating, which still remains much more dramatic than the robbery had just happened.
You're like, oh, OK, I guess so. I don't know.
I've seen that before. Yeah.
What's going to happen at dinner? I mean, I was even thinking about how the show works in this novelistic way of like making the rounds for all the characters over and over again and each time adding a little bit of layer of personality and so on. So we had the Quebecois maybe escort.
Yeah. And Gary slash Greg.
Who met the matchmaking service in Dubai. Yeah.
And the foursome at dinner. What about you? What do you do? Well, the same thing that you do, Gary.
This and that. There are a lot of people here who do this and that.
Right, in which Chelsea and Rick get to feel like a functional and loving couple compared to the other two. She's young and fun, like me and he's old and grumpy like you.
I'm just kidding. I'm glad that you made a friend.
By the way, that sex scene, surprising. Yeah.
But also that it seemed very genuine and tender. And then I was, again, I was like, all you want to be do if you're like wounded, all you want to be do is like taken care of by like an open hearted fawn.
Totally. And so that's what he, then it made, so now I get like, this is why they're together.
And occasionally he lets her and then she feels happy about it. And then he obviously feels happy about it.
But he doesn't always let her. Yeah.
Right. Right.
Even not sexually. Like she throws out the tantric, you know, offer at the beginning and he doesn't go for it.
And it's only when he really feels, I guess, vulnerable. Has been brought low by the meditation session.
Yes, exactly. That he's like open to receive her.
And then the continued psychosexual horror show that is Patrick Schwarzenegger. Like he has gotten a boner during a massage.
I mean, you know, I'm not going to fault him for that. He's mad that nothing happened to it.
What? Aren't they all supposed to be a little speci-speci? Saxon, stop it! It's interesting. I mean, Saxon is this very timely re-articulation of just like pure American male id.
He's like Gordon Gekko. He's like this, you know, from Wall Street.
But fresh out of, you know, Delta whatever it did to. Right, exactly.
Right. But what do I want, I guess? Pussy? Money? Freedom? Respect? Get laid, get everything.
He's kind of like a ball of flame. Like his presence is just this like unidirectional, like nearly pansexual.
You know, like it's really specifically masculine, but it's just like he is just so horny and so aggressive. I mean, he's sexually harassing both of his siblings so hard.

Do you know what I mean?

And his parents just giggle about it.

He's two seconds away from, like, trying to see his younger brother stick.

Just, like, trying to be like, okay, but how big is it when it's hard?

You know, he's just like, oh, he's so— Right.

That could be coming.

And then his sister has found out when she is on this sort of hammock situation in the water that I've never personally experienced and I'd really like to now. Yeah, I was like, how do I have that in my house? Yeah, like, how do I? And it seems actually like we can't.
Like, I had that thought. I was like, actually, I can't replicate this.
I need open ocean. But she finds out then from Lachlan, the younger brother who's just been in a sensory deprivation tank, basically is asking, like, are you a virgin? We've been talking about how you're hot, but you're not having sex.
And understandably and rightfully so, the sister's like, what? What are you talking about? Why are you two discussing this? Why are you talking about this? When we learn from Piper that she believes in God. Don't you feel like that could just be, like, wishful thinking?, like you want to feel something.
It's real.

We don't know exactly in what sort of presentation format, but my guess for her is that she is kind of a recent convert to spirituality or, you know, like something.

And she had such a strong, like I feel, I mean, not that this is any of my business, but it was part of I feel like she has had sex and she is redevoting her, like that she is trying to deny the life of the flesh at the moment. She's trying to transcend, you know, the prison of one's body and identity.
We'll see. Some of the characters now we're seeing some leads as to what might happen, right? So Belinda.
Oh, I love Belinda's moment. Yeah, clocks the hot bod.
Porn chai. Yeah, on Porn chai's bod.
So, how would you like me? On my back or on my stomach? And she's like, on my stomach. And he's like, I meant me.
And so and then and then she also clocks Gary slash Greg. Yeah.
At the dinner. Right.
I know. And it's such a good it's I hadn't thought about her feelings that she would have.
I mean, because at what point does she already know that Tanya is dead? Right. Does she know? Like, will she? Or is she going to suddenly start sleuthing? Right.
Because because I feel she will feel an implicit alliance with Tanya despite Tanya having configured herself as her enemy. Like it should kind of be like the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
But they're not going to form an alliance. Right.
Belinda is – right? Like you just kind of feel that. Right.
Now I'm like, you know what? Greg, Gary, would you come back to his third White Lotus property? Would you associate yourself? Wouldn't you want to go down the other side of the hill to the different resort? Greg is courting danger, you know? It's true. I mean, how is he to know that Belinda's going to show up on her training mission? And there's no way he remembers her at all, right? No.
There's no chance he remembers her, which I hope she is to her advantage. One thing I was struck by watching is that a lot of this episode is about performance.
You have the vocal performance at the dinner from the matron of the hotel. And then, of course, you have the three friends who are on their girls' trip who are engaging in this ongoing self-performance for each other, which then drops when one of them is away.
Those three actors, when they are doing, having fun, but primarily in a way that's like I'm performing, woman on vacation, having fun. It best first.
She was amazing. Totally amazing.
You're amazing. Oh my God.
They're so profoundly self-conscious when they're around each other. And then the way it totally collapses and changes as soon as one of them leaves the room.
It's just, it's amazing. It's amazing stuff.
Well, I mean, it must be exhausting to write to put that on. Can you write to be performing all the time? But also that family, the Ratliff family, is a group performance of some kind, right? Piper's trying to opt out.
Lachlan's unsure. Saxon's the biggest.
He wants to be the new leading man. And then the parents are kind of orchestrating the whole thing.
And you, I mean, it's already, the edifice is already cracking, right? And we are able to see as viewers actually in the wings of that performance. Well, and it's, they make it clear in almost everything the parents say that the primary sort of locus for them and like what is a good family is the sort of successful performance in edifice, right? You're all gorgeous and you come for money, so you have to be hyper-vigilant, okay? It's like you have to not, basically, like, you've got this beautiful facade, like, don't let it slip.
Leslie Bibb, she has that line where she's like, well, you know what they say, the bigger the front, the bigger the back, or whatever. Yeah, right, right.
You know, and it's like, and this is an operative line for everyone, but especially that family. It's like they're, it is so core to their identity.
You feel that these children have heard since they were like little kids in perfect Christmas outfits posing for their perfect Christmas picture in front of a giant, you know, tree at a country club that like the virtue exists in the performance of that virtue. Like there is no, there is no sense of the internal unless it is what you're projecting.
Again, by the way, I was thinking about the prison of identity. But the therapist talks to Rick about.
And the therapist says the same thing to Rick. Meditation can bring relief to psychic pain.
meditation helps you see that the identity you've created brings you suffering. It reminded me that at the very beginning of White Lotus Season 1, when they're greeting the boat, Armand is there and they're all smiling and he's there with the woman who later just gives birth in the middle of the hotel.
She's a trainee and he's saying, what you want to do is be nobody. You know, you don't want to be too specific as a presence, as an identity.
You want to be more generic. Generic.
Yes. You know, it's a Japanese ethos where we are asked to disappear behind our masks as pleasant, interchangeable helpers.
He's just like, you just want to be like a non-presence, not a person. So you're like, he's saying deny your identity.
Later, he like throws that yoke off and like rolls with his identity and he winds up dead, right? So I feel like there's like a cautionary tale in the aspect of your identity. And it's now I see it like running through the whole thing.
Right. And I think that here there will be this sort of reinvention sort of recurrence thing that will be happening that's sort of thematically consistent with the setting and Buddhism and whatever.
And it's like Rick is, you know, he is on his second, third, fourth iteration of a life it feels like. You know, like there's that moment where he and Greg, who's still going by Gary, Tanya's Greg, it's like they talk about doing this and that.
And it's like every fucking white American is here for having done this and that, you know. And he's like, it's a good business.
Yeah, exactly. And so it's like, quote unquote, Gary is trying to leave his life behind.
Rick is trying to either leave something behind or step into a new version of himself. I feel like Piper is doing that.
The Ratliff dad is trying to, you know, take the $10 million, the mere $10 million he got out of whatever fraud bribery situation went on in Brunei and try to leave it behind. But he can't.
It's catching up with him. Right.
I think part of the idea of the show is that character is not destiny. Right.
Right. Classic storytelling is that character is destiny.
But I do think for most of the characters, like, I think there tend to only – I think that there are like a couple of journeys per season that really cut at a strange angle against character's destiny. But mostly people kind of end up where – do you know what I mean? Right.
Like it's's like everyone there's something surprising happens to everyone in the course of their week at the white lotus but you know it's like you know jake lacy's coming out of there same guy same wife you know what i mean like there's um but it is interesting to wonder like who it's going to be who it's going to be that's going to get out of the ringer you know kind of like who's right by converse logic also there is i think a line, a line in there where I say, oh, after you leave here, you'll be a whole new

person. But of course, the reality is

that people go on vacation and they don't want to

be the same person. They think

they want to have something new, but they actually want to go

to the hotel and come home and go back to their house

and be the same as they were. And that's

the trap that most people would step

into, I guess, if you were following

the kind of like spiritual logic of the show, and then some people break out. Yeah, I wonder who that's going to be.
And now we're so excited to be joined by Lisa Manibal and Tame Tap Tim Tong, who play our friends Mook and Guy Tuck. Welcome to the White Lotus Season 3 podcast, the companion show to the series.
It's nice to have you guys both. Thank you very much.
Thank you for having us. Thank you.
We've been loving watching the season. I wanted to ask you guys, Mike White always casts people from the country, the place where he's shooting.
How did you guys feel in these roles as the primary Thai voices in the show? And what do you hope viewers sort of take away about Thailand? Well, I'm very, very grateful and very honored to get to represent Thailand as an actor in this beautiful role that Mike White has written for us.

I really hope that

we represent how

sweet Thai people are

because we try to make it

as authentic as possible

as Thai locals would be.

They're pretty conservative people

but they are emotional

and they are sweet people.

I'm just so grateful

that they decided to do

Thank you. They're pretty conservative people, but they are emotional and they are sweet people, you know? So, yeah.
I'm just so grateful that they decided to do a season three in Thailand. So it's a chance for us to showing our culture to the world.
And I can't wait for them to watch this season. What's interesting to me watching it is that you guys have this lovely little romance, this courtship, but it's also both of the characters are very different from your real lives, right? Like you're an international, you know, pop star and you come from a military background and, you know, where your characters are supposed to be like unfamiliar with that world.
And so what was that like sort of playing these two different types of people from yourselves who are then interacting with each other? I think for me, like only the job is different. But me, my personal, me and Mook, I think we're like in common a lot.
Yeah. Like I didn't change.
It's like, she's ambitious. I'm ambitious as well.
Like she's nice, bubbly girl. Like I'm a nice bubbly girl like i'm like that day today and yeah yeah for me it was a challenge just to play a character that is uh very very friendly very very shy because all i played before this was i always played like almost like a bad guy all the time.
So a bit more serious roles. But this was very, very refreshing for me.
Because I actually found out that, you know what, actually, I do have a lot in common with Guy Talk. Because I am very shy around girls, especially like you.
And so I could actually really use just my own character in that but yeah I think the one that was one of the most challenging is being so unfamiliar with sort of like oh like you know when the thieves are trying to leave and stuff how I'm grabbing them how I'm like you have to not know what you're doing I don't know what to do otherwise I'd do it differently for sure I'm like, just, you know. You have to not know what you're doing.
Yeah, I don't know what to do. Yeah, because otherwise I'd do it differently, for sure.
If you wanted to immediately disarm them and take them down. You could have secured that promotion to be the international bodyguard.
Yes, yes. But it was fun.
The challenge was great. You had a lot You got to discover your sensitive side.
I got to explore my sensitive side. I really enjoyed that.
Oh. Yeah.
How did you guys, you know, the romance from the very first scene when the motorbike breaks down and you're kind of making the joke, like, give me a hundred baht or whatever. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, it is truly such a sweet and lovely and like totally, like I was immediately invested from that.
And I wonder if you guys can talk about the relationship. Like we start the show and your characters have clearly have had a slow burning little flirtation for a bit now and are still moving very slow despite Guy Tuck's desire to make it move faster.
Yeah. By saying your family already loves me, et cetera.
But yeah, tell me about how you sort of together sort of conceived what this relationship and kind of slow-burning romance would be. I think from Guy Talk's point of view, he has been thinking about this for a while, you know, like sort of almost planning out how do I break this to her and should I? Because, you know, that's what all the hesitation at that lunch table was all about because i i just felt like if i confess this to her will this kind of backfire on me and sort of she might be like whoa like i i did not think of you like that you're like a brother to me or something and just completely ruined the relationship but yeah yeah, so I think, you know,

the way I thought in my head is that I've been staying up all night thinking about this.

Should I ask her to lunch tomorrow?

And then after I've asked her to lunch,

probably sitting in my booth and like,

okay, how do I convince her that this is a good idea?

Okay, like our parents know each other.

He brought everything to like convince her. I yeah i mean mook and kai talk is like a family friend since they were young so they grew up together in the island and um i think mook never thought of kai talk in that romantic way but when he confessed she was like oh maybe like okay let's try it, let's try it out.
Let's see what he can do.

Let's go on one date.

Is he good enough for me?

Yes.

Exactly.

It is kind of a forward move, though,

because it's almost like a marriage proposal,

but before you've been on a date.

You're like, well, I've laid it out.

Here's my case.

Our families know each other.

We work at the same place.

Obviously, we're meant to be together.

It's just kind of a, it's like, it's like a a nervous energy but it's actually a very strong move kind of i mean i i think it's close to how i i am in real life sometimes you know that was the you coming out something that could just be casual like hey do you want to go on a date you know i always make it such a big deal and then sometimes i might make them a bit put off. And this happened many times.
Aww. Let's all talk about that.
Yeah, yeah. I wonder if y'all can talk about the, you know, these are sort of notoriously fun experiences for the cast, everyone on there together.
I wonder if you can just talk a little bit about what the actual filming experience was like and how you, maybe how the two of you supported and grounded each other as this, you know, like important pair within the cast at large. Yeah.
For me, this is my acting debut. So I don't know what to expect on set, to be honest.
And I was super nervous on the first date with Tame as well, But Tame helped me a lot. And also Mike and our Thai producer as well.
Everybody just being such a supportive role for me. And I really had a lot of fun while shooting.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all the way from the cast dinner where we first met, it was just amazing.
Like the whole experience, you know, like meeting all the actors I've seen in different movies and different shows before. And then Lisa coming in into the cast dinner, like, you know, she made quite an entrance.
Say more. Yeah.
Really? Yeah. Very nice lv white dress and then you know i was told by the producer like oh lisa's here tim tim tim come come and i was like oh my god oh my god your girlfriend's here your girlfriend's here yeah like your girlfriend's here yeah yeah she was so great because she um she broke the ice immediately and you know we had a few drinks and and they sat us together for the dinner And after that it was just very very smooth and we would just you know have lunches together dinners together and just Get to know each other and make the make the the connection authentic Yeah, yes, we have to be on set together a lot.
Oh, yeah I want people to really believe that we're friends since we're over young. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah, we did.
You feel it right away from the first encounter with the moped. Just how they're able to just kind of tease each other.
Yeah. How did you guys think about what each of these characters individually wants their life to look like in five years, ten years? Did you have a sense of that? Does Gaitok want to be the bodyguard traveling internationally? You were saying that Mook is ambitious, right? Where do they see themselves post White Lotus? I think they're both ready to leave White Lotus if they have a better opportunity.
Yeah, I think Gaitok, I think he's in a little bit of denial like you know when when she was oh you know i look at those guys they get to travel the world they get good money and i'm like i like my job you know watching the car yeah but i think deep deep down inside he did take that that what she said and you really think about it. And he does slowly, I think, push himself more or at least try.
So, yeah, I mean, everything she says to him really has a lot of weight on it. Do you think that Mook wants to perform? Mook always loves to perform.
Yeah. Yeah.
If you tell her to like, oh, sing tonight. Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
She's ready. Yeah.
She crushes it on stage. Well, thank you guys so much for talking to us.
We're loving this evening. Thank you very much.
I love your voice. It's like so husky.
Thank you. I wish I could have that voice.
I can't believe that I was just invited to join Blackpink. Basically.
I'm going to start my intensive dance training tomorrow. I thought you started this morning.
You already started rehearsing some moves. I started in preparation and hoped that she would say that to me.
Okay, now to Sam Nivola who plays Lachlan. Here we have Sam Nivola who plays Lachlan Ratliff.
Welcome to the White Lotus Season 3 podcast and nice to see you again. It's nice to see you again and nice to meet you.
I'm very happy to be here. I want to know what the casting notice was like.
What was the description of Lockie? I remember him being described. I can't really remember exactly the description, but it was definitely, you know, something that I was used to being cast as.
It was like, you know, virginal, teen, really awkward, you know what I mean? I was like, God, this sounds nothing like me. Don't pigeonhole me.
Yeah, exactly. But it's funny.
It was one of the most straightforward casting processes I've ever been a part of. I mean, I've done jobs where I've had to audition for half a year and do 15 callbacks.
And every time they're like, it's getting a little bit closer. It's getting a little, you know.
And this one, it was like I'd sent in a'd sent in a tape he was like I love it let's zoom and then we zoomed and I read a scene and then the next day he was like I love you let's do it you are the precise type of virginal teen we want I was like well I'm flattered you're like are you sure I shouldn't play saxon yeah I was like I think I'm a little

too muscly

and masculine

and cool

I feel more like a saxon

yeah

exactly

the only brutal part

about it

is that

all of our callbacks

I spoke to Sarah Catherine

and Patrick about this too

were all the day

after Christmas

so we just had

the most stress

ridden Christmases

where we were just

like shaking

waiting to do this thing

and then of course

Mike is the nicest

person in the world

and I wound up

being totally fine

and we were stressing

over nothing. Your character is presented from the beginning as like, there are these two sort of poles in terms of the older siblings, in terms of Piper and Saxon, and they are on two kind of extremes in terms of aggression and gentleness, whatever you call it, masculinity, femininity.

Did you have a sense of the character as truly in the middle, truly not knowing where he was going to land? Well, I think that I, you know, I go episode to episode. I switch back and forth with my allegiances between my brother and my sister.
And I really think it kind of actually has nothing to do with what they're preaching, with the lifestyles that they like to live and which one I think is better. I think it's more about like, which one of you at any given time will make me feel loved and supported.
And like all my character wants, all Lachlan wants is a friend. You know what I mean? He's just a really, really deeply insecure, lonely person that like, oh, you're offering me some sort of affection or attention or love.
Like I will do whatever you want for the next two days. You know what I mean? Oh, but then you're going to offer it as well? Like I'll do whatever you you want.
You know, in a way, their two worldviews to their own chagrin hold no bearing on my choices in terms of which one of them I ally with. Yeah, it's interesting.
It's really well set up with the very first scene getting to the villa where you're trying to decide which room.

Are you going to be a child still and sleep with your sister or be an adult and follow the male lineage of the family?

The same with the decision with Chapel Hill and Duke, right? And I was like, which way are you going? Yeah, I mean, I feel like I relate to that whole thing a lot. I have a specific experience, which is that I dropped out of college to become an actor.
And I sort of forced myself to grow up really fast. And I like, you know, was working professional jobs at the age of 17 and moved into my first apartment when I was 18, which are all amazing experiences that I'm incredibly lucky to have had the privilege to have but it's uh yeah it's like growing up a little too fast and you chose adulthood or the extended adolescence yeah exactly and i think there's pros and cons to that i mean i think i think the moral of like my character's story is that either way whatever you choose in life whatever path you choose, you're going to be fucked in some ways.
And you're also going to really enjoy it in some ways. And there's no right way.
And that's kind of how I feel. I really enjoy the way my life is panning out right now.
And I feel really lucky for it. But part of me is also like, man, I wish I had tailgated at a college party.
And yeah, I think everyone has a little bit of that push and pull. People want to grow up too fast or they want to stay a kid for too long.
And here in New York, you can just have both for about three decades. Yeah, exactly.
We were talking about that in each season, there has been a gentle boy, right? Like a gentle, moldable boy. Yeah.
Right? There's Quinn season one and Albie season two. And now you.
Yeah, I don't know. Did you, like, I mean, Lachlan is such a classic youngest.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it fun to, I don't know, be the baby? It was.
Yeah, it was totally fun to be the baby. I mean, it's funny, you know, like having Parker was always really like babying me in the scenes in a really sweet way.
And it's honestly like comforting to have some amazing actress playing your mother be really like loving and kind to you, especially when you're so far away from your real mother. But there's like some – the one time that you really see Lachlan assert himself is when Victoria is rude to Leslie Bibb, when Parker Post is rude to Leslie Bibb.

Yeah. your real mother well but there's like some the one time that you really see Lachlan assert himself is when Victoria is rude to Leslie Bibb when Parker Post is rude to Leslie Bibb yeah yeah and he's actually like mom what were you doing yeah like how do you understand their relationship those two characters those two characters well I think Victoria is just like incredibly threatened uh she she thinks her whole dynamic of our family is that she thinks everyone wants something from us you know we have money she thinks everyone is a sort of leech and that our family is this unbreakable unit and that everyone wants to fuck us over somehow and yeah it felt like that moment was Lachlan kind of calling his mom out on like, this is actually...
The defense mechanism is overwhelming. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, it's just... And I totally know that feeling when it's like one of your parents says something embarrassing and you're just like, guys, just fucking cut it out.
That never goes away. I think actually to the point you were making about the way that there's sort of not a judgment about the character and the choices that you make and things can go right or wrong and it's okay.
I think that for me kind of holds true for the show in general that that's probably what it's about, right? The show is very sympathetic to all the characters even in their deepest mistakes. Insanities, yeah.
And so I'm curious, is that something you felt coming from Mike

as the show's being made?

I think you couldn't have said it better. I mean, listen, at the end of the day, the show was written by Mike.
My interpretation of it is that the characters are all versions of him, I think. and they're all like splintered, exaggerated, heightened parts of his, of Mike's soul.
And so I think as a result, he really cares for all of them. And even if he writes them doing insane, fucked up, murderous things, they're still sort of a part of him that he cares for.
And there's nothing worse than a movie with like an antihero that you just actually hate because it's just boring. I think you can feel in the writing his love for all of the characters, even the most fucked up ones.
Lachlan is sort of obsessed with tsunami videos. Definitely.
Something I relate to. What do you make of that? Is he afraid that something is going to come undone? I think definitely that the tsunami video obsession is a sort of writer's tool by Mike to maybe tease some sort of disaster that the audience obviously knows is coming before even starting the show because that's the format of the show is something fucked up and crazy happens every season and I think people that are obsessed with disasters are generally people who are really lost because the whole thing about these tsunami videos at least for Lachlan is that it highlights the sort of meaninglessness of life.
And the whole thing is like, wow, like in a second, you know, I can't remember how many, I think it was like 270,000 people died in that tsunami. And it's completely traumatized the country.
And there's still remnants of it today. That just highlights the fact that it can all go away in a second.
And I think for someone like Lachlan, that needs to be the case that life is meaningless because life is hard for him. Emotionally, at least.
Like everyone in the family is aware that it could go away any second in very different ways. Exactly.
And that also plays into the whole thing of like timothy losing his money and it's on different scales for everyone whether it's like your whole city could actually be destroyed by a tsunami or if it's like this way of life that you're so used to could go away in a second like what are our values basically and that's sort of the big question with our whole family i think is, do we value our way of life or do we value just life and the people around us? Or each other.

Each other. Yeah.
Sam, thank you so much for talking to us.

Yeah. Thanks for coming in.
Yeah. Well, this was so fun.
You guys are really cool.

I had a great time. Thank you.

Thanks to our guests, Tame and Lisa and Sam, and we'lliyah Papes.

Sound design and mix by Ewan Leitrimuyn.

At Campside Media, our executive producer is Josh Dean.

For the HBO podcast team, our executive producer is Michael Gluckstadt,

senior producer Allison Cohen-Zorokach, and producer Kenya Reyes.

Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. The official White Lotus podcast is sponsored by Abercrombie & Fitch.
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