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

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Speaker 4 I'm on vacation with my family. I don't know her.

Speaker 3 Her friend is Jacqueline Lemon.

Speaker 3 Who's that? She's an actress. She's famous.

Speaker 4 Would you be impressed? Actresses are all basically prostitutes.

Speaker 6 If they're lucky.

Speaker 7 Am I right?

Speaker 6 Hello and welcome to the White Lotus Official Podcast Companion to Season 3. I'm Gia Talentino.

Speaker 7 And I'm Josh Bierman.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 7 Yes, although this may be the last warning because by now you probably know how podcasts work. Yeah.

Speaker 7 And later on in in this episode, we're going to be speaking with Tame Tap Tim Tong and Lalisa Manaval, who play Guy Talk and Woop, and Sam Nivola, who plays the youngest Ratliff, Bachman.

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 6 Are you still Goggins?

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah. I'm now stronger in the Goggins direction.
When he gets into the treatment center

Speaker 7 and is there in this kind of spiritual repartee with the guru there,

Speaker 3 I don't need to detach.

Speaker 3 I'm already nothing.

Speaker 5 Even nothing can be an illusion you tell yourself.

Speaker 7 That's when I was like, oh yeah, now I get it.

Speaker 7 That's where I fit in. Who are you identifying with?

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 I unfortunately am beginning to identify more with the three women who are constantly talking shit about each other.

Speaker 7 And where do you land in that trio?

Speaker 3 Oh, God.

Speaker 6 Well, unfortunately, I'm not, I mean, I'm not a lori. Never been a lorry.
Just kidding. I probably have been a lorry at times in my past.

Speaker 6 It is one of the women that are eager to be the alpha.

Speaker 6 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 Kuhn has gone to bed.

Speaker 6 And Kate and Jacqueline, Les Lee Pebb, and Michelle Monaghan can really get into the gossip.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 And then as soon as one of them leaves, they snap into the mode of truth-telling.

Speaker 7 They probably console themselves by believing that

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 It's because 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

Speaker 7 Lori and Kate talking about Michelle Monaghan.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 7 And then it seemed like she picks up that they're talking about her explicitly, right?

Speaker 7 They're trying to like basically undo that facade brick by brick in the conversation they were having just before.

Speaker 3 And then the whole thing with the husband.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 There's something weird there, right? She goes on and on. They're so in love.

Speaker 4 They're addicted to each other.

Speaker 3 But I mean, are they ever even in the same city?

Speaker 4 I don't think they ever see each other.

Speaker 6 Yeah, and now we don't,

Speaker 6 we just have to wait for the shit talk about Leslie Piv.

Speaker 3 I can't wait to hear what that is.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 And you find it out just in the way that they kind of

Speaker 3 talk.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 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

Speaker 7 there's this compulsion basically to try to then measure yourself and like rebalance it by having your side gossip or introducing a negative thought about the other friend to the third one, right?

Speaker 7 Right, right, right. Like it's just, it's like this natural

Speaker 7 sort of self-preservation.

Speaker 7 I also love 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.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I can't.

Speaker 3 It would be crazy.

Speaker 3 I wouldn't dare.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 I'm the boss. So

Speaker 3 maybe.

Speaker 3 Maybe one day.

Speaker 6 I'm obsessed with him. I'm obsessed with him.

Speaker 6 When he drifts away to what you know is a montage in his head of him,

Speaker 6 you know, like folly, just him like taking the stage in a grand review with feathers and diamonds and everything.

Speaker 7 And emerging out of like a giant clamshell.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 6 And it's his range.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 7 So I'm excited to see where Fabian winds up.

Speaker 7 So we have also a scene with Mooken Guytok,

Speaker 7 the Thai staff.

Speaker 6 He really blew it there.

Speaker 7 I know.

Speaker 7 He pulled the fish hook before it was baited. Like, he didn't even, that was, he basically asked her

Speaker 7 to marry him, you know, like elliptically without any context or preface. As she said, we'd never been on a date.
Oh, but I, you know, obviously everybody's going to be shipping to these two.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 6 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 talk at the gate.

Speaker 7 Yes, it appears like

Speaker 7 there's a deception operation here so that a car can get in and there's mass dudes running with guns and steal.

Speaker 6 But they just steal some jewelry. I'm like, that's not that much stuff, you know? Like, you didn't even get a cash register.

Speaker 3 Is that really expensive?

Speaker 7 It must be expensive.

Speaker 3 I guess it must be

Speaker 3 expensive.

Speaker 7 She really wants that snake choker when she's in the middle of the day.

Speaker 6 I know. I think we're going to get that back.
That statement is going to reoccur. But we got the gun.
I mean, I was surprised that

Speaker 6 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 that we saw a gun. But so on the way back out,

Speaker 7 pistol whipped.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 3 You gasped. You were like, oh no.

Speaker 9 You're like, oh, no.

Speaker 6 I'm not squeamish about violence, but I hate the sound of something colliding with a head. But clearly, Mook is attracted to more aggressive signs of masculinity.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 7 It's interesting. Quick side note, that guy, the real guy, is like a special forces really? It's like a military guy.
Really?

Speaker 7 And yeah, and you can tell, like, if you meet him, he's not like that character at all.

Speaker 3 Like this sort of stuff.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 6 But so once he is sort of bandaged up, she comes to him and is like, I was so worried or whatever, right?

Speaker 9 Like, yeah, I know.

Speaker 7 That's so sweet. Yeah.
Well, I'm hoping for them.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 You're like, oh, okay, I guess so. I don't know.
I've seen that before. What's going to happen at dinner?

Speaker 7 I mean, I was even thinking about how the show works in this novelistic way of like making the rounds through all the characters over and over again, and each time adding a little bit of layer of personality and so on.

Speaker 7 So we had the Quebecois maybe escort. Yeah.
And who met the matchmaking service in Dubai?

Speaker 7 and the four of some at dinner.

Speaker 11 What about you? What do you do?

Speaker 3 Well, the same thing that you do, Gary. This and that.

Speaker 9 Meet a lot of people here who do this and that.

Speaker 6 Right. In which Chelsea and Rick get to feel like a functional and loving couple compared to the other two.

Speaker 3 She's young and fun, like me, and he's old and grumpy, like you.

Speaker 3 I'm just kidding.

Speaker 1 I'm glad that you made a friend.

Speaker 7 By the way, that sex scene, surprising.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I was, but also, that it seemed very genuine and tender. Yeah.
And then I was

Speaker 7 again, I was like, all you want to be do if you're like a wounded, you all you want to be do is like taken care of by like an open-hearted fawn.

Speaker 9 Totally, totally.

Speaker 7 And so that's what he then made.

Speaker 3 So now I get like, this is why they're gay.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 7 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

Speaker 3 feels like

Speaker 8 that meditation session exactly that he's like open to receive her

Speaker 6 and then the continued psychosexual horror show that is patrick sports and ignorance

Speaker 6 like he has gotten a boner during a massage i mean you know i'm not going to fault him for that but is mad that nothing happened to it

Speaker 3 What aren't they all supposed to be a little specially specially?

Speaker 7 It's interesting. I mean, Saxon is this very timely

Speaker 7 re-articulation of just like pure American male id.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's like Gordon Gecko, yeah, he's like this, you know, but fresh out of you know, Delta, whatever it, yeah, do, right, exactly, right.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 what do I want?

Speaker 5 I guess pussy,

Speaker 3 Money, freedom, respect?

Speaker 9 Get laid.

Speaker 9 Get everything?

Speaker 6 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

Speaker 6 he has, he is just so horny and so aggressive. I mean, he's, he's sexually harassing both of his siblings so hard.

Speaker 3 Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 7 And his parents just giggle about it.

Speaker 6 He's two seconds away from like trying to see his younger brother's dick. Just like trying to be like, okay, but how big is it when it's on? You know, like he's just like, oh, he's so.

Speaker 7 Right. That could be coming.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 1 And I'd really like to know.

Speaker 7 How do I have that in my house? Yeah.

Speaker 6 Like, how do I, and it seems actually like we can't. Like, I had that thought.
And I was like, actually, I can't replicate this.

Speaker 3 It cannot be done. I need open ocean.

Speaker 6 But she finds out then from Lachlan, the younger brother who's just

Speaker 6 been in a sensory deprivation tank, basically is asking, Are you a virgin? We've been talking about how you're hot, but you're not having sex.

Speaker 6 And understandably and rightfully so, the sister's like, What?

Speaker 3 What are you talking about? Why are you two victims? Why are you talking about this?

Speaker 6 You know, when we learn from Piper that she believes in God,

Speaker 10 don't you feel like that could just be like wishful thinking?

Speaker 3 Like,

Speaker 10 you want to feel something so you feel?

Speaker 6 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

Speaker 6 spirituality or, you know,

Speaker 6 like something.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 She's trying to transcend, you know, the prison of one's body and identity. Right.

Speaker 6 We'll see.

Speaker 7 Some of the characters now we're seeing some leads leads as to what might happen, right? So Belinda

Speaker 7 clocks the hot bod on

Speaker 7 porn chai's bod.

Speaker 7 So,

Speaker 3 how would you like me?

Speaker 3 On my back or on my stomach?

Speaker 6 And she's like, on my stomach.

Speaker 3 And he's like, I meant me.

Speaker 7 And so,

Speaker 7 and then

Speaker 7 she also clocks Gary slash Greg at the dinner, right?

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 9 Right.

Speaker 6 Does she know? Like, will she?

Speaker 7 Or is she going to suddenly start sleuthing?

Speaker 6 Right. Because I feel that she will feel an implicit alliance with Tanya despite Tanya having configured herself as her enemy.

Speaker 6 Like, it should kind of be like the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but they're not going to form an alliance. Belinda is right.
Like, you just kind of feel that.

Speaker 6 Right. Now I'm like, you know what? Greg, Gary, would you come back to a third white lotus property? Would you associate yourself?

Speaker 6 Wouldn't you want to go down the other side of the hill to the different resort? Greg is courting danger, you know?

Speaker 7 Like, it's true. I mean, how is he to know that Blinda's going to show up on her training mission?

Speaker 6 And there's no way he remembers her at all, right?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 6 There's no chance he remembers her, which I hope she is to her advantage.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 6 Those three actors, when they are doing, having fun, but primarily like in a way that's like I'm performing woman on vacation having fun.

Speaker 3 It was the best first.

Speaker 4 She was amazing.

Speaker 3 Totally amazing.

Speaker 3 You're amazing. Oh my God.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 It's amazing stuff.

Speaker 7 Well, I mean, it must be exhausting to write to put that on. Can you wait to be performing all the time? But also that family.
The Ratliff family is a group performance of some kind, right?

Speaker 7 Piper's trying to opt out.

Speaker 7 Lachlan's unsure.

Speaker 7 Saxon's the biggest. He wants to be the new leading man.
Right. And then the parents are kind of orchestrating the whole thing.
And you, I mean, it's already, the edifice is already cracking, right?

Speaker 7 And we are able to see as viewers actually in the wings of that performance.

Speaker 6 Well, and it's, they make it clear in almost everything the parents say that the primary sort of

Speaker 6 locus for them in like what is a good family is the sort of successful performance in Edifice, right?

Speaker 4 You're all gorgeous and you come from money, so you have to be hyper vigilant, okay?

Speaker 6 It's like you have to not basically like, you've got this beautiful facade, like don't let it slip.

Speaker 3 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 it is.

Speaker 6 You know, and it's like, and this is an operative line for everyone, but especially, especially that family. It's like they're, it is so core to their identity.

Speaker 6 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 tree at a country club that like the virtue exists in the performance of that virtue.

Speaker 6 Like there is no, there is no sense of the internal unless it is what you're unless it's what you're projecting.

Speaker 7 Again, by the way, I was thinking about the

Speaker 7 prison of identity and that the therapist talks to Rick about. And the therapist says the same thing to Rick.

Speaker 5 Meditation can bring relief to psychic pain.

Speaker 5 Meditation helps you see that the identity you've created brings you suffering.

Speaker 7 It reminded me that at the very beginning of Whitelotus season one, 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.

Speaker 7 She's a trainee, and he's saying, What you want to do is be nobody.

Speaker 3 You know, you don't want to be too specific

Speaker 3 as a presence, as an identity. You want to be more generic.

Speaker 5 Generic.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 You know, it's a Japanese ethos where we are asked to disappear behind our masks as pleasant, interchangeable helpers.

Speaker 7 He's just like, you just want to be like a non-presence, not a person. So you're like,

Speaker 7 he's saying, deny your identity. Later, he throws that yoke off and 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.

Speaker 7 And it's now I see it like running through the whole thing.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 And it's like Rick is, you know,

Speaker 6 he is

Speaker 6 on his second, third, fourth iteration of a life, it feels like, you know, like what there was that moment where he and

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 7 And he's like, it's a good business.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 I feel like Piper is doing that.

Speaker 6 The Ratliff dad is trying to

Speaker 6 take the $10 million, the mere $10 million he got out of whatever

Speaker 6 fraud, bribery situation went on in Brunei and try to leave it behind, but he can't. It's catching up with him.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 7 I think part of the idea of the show is that character is not destiny. Right.
Classic storytelling is that character is destiny.

Speaker 6 But I do think for most of the characters, like

Speaker 6 I think there tend to only,

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 6 Like it's like everyone, there's something surprising happens to everyone in the course of their week at the White Lotus.

Speaker 6 But, you know, it's like, you know, Jake Lacey's coming out of there, same guy, same wife. You know what I mean? Like, there's,

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 3 Like, who's right?

Speaker 7 By converse logic, also, there is, I think, a line in there where they say, oh, after you leave here, you'll be a whole new person.

Speaker 7 But of course, the reality is that people go on vacation and they don't want to, they want to be the same person.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I wonder who that's going to be.

Speaker 6 And now we're so excited to be joined by Lisa Manibal and Tame Tap Tim Tong, who play our friends Mook and Guy Talk.

Speaker 7 Welcome to the White Lotus Season 3 podcast, the companion show to the series. It's nice to have you guys both.

Speaker 3 Thank you very much. Thank you for having us.

Speaker 12 Thank you.

Speaker 6 We've been loving watching the season.

Speaker 6 So I wanted to ask you guys, you know, Mike White always casts people from the country, the place where he's shooting.

Speaker 6 You know, 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?

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 8 you know, 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

Speaker 8 we represent how

Speaker 8 sweet Thai people are because

Speaker 8 we try to make it as authentic as possible

Speaker 8 as

Speaker 8 Thai locals would be.

Speaker 8 They're pretty conservative people but they are emotional and they are sweet people.

Speaker 12 I'm just so grateful that they decide 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.

Speaker 7 What is interesting to me watching it is that you guys have this lovely little

Speaker 7 romance, this courtship, but it's also both of the characters are very different from your real lives, right?

Speaker 7 Like you're an international, you know, pop star and you come from a military background and you know where your characters sort of supposed to be like unfamiliar with that world.

Speaker 7 And so what was that like, sort of playing these two different types of people from yourselves who are then interacting with each other?

Speaker 12 I think for me, like, only the job is different.

Speaker 12 But, me, my personal

Speaker 12 me and Mook, I think, were like in common a lot.

Speaker 12 Yeah, like, I didn't change. It's like, she's ambitious.
I'm ambitious as well. Like, she's a nice, bubbly girl.

Speaker 3 Like, I'm like that.

Speaker 3 I'm like that.

Speaker 12 Day today. And, yeah.

Speaker 8 For me,

Speaker 8 it was a challenge just to play a character that is very

Speaker 8 friendly, very shy.

Speaker 8 All I played before this was I always played almost like a bad guy all the time.

Speaker 8 So a bit more serious roles. But this was very, very refreshing for me because I actually found out that...

Speaker 8 You know what? Actually, I do have a lot in common with Gaitar because I am very shy around girls, especially like you.

Speaker 8 and so I could actually really use just my own character in that.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 trying to leave and stuff, you know, how I'm grabbing them, how I'm like,

Speaker 8 like, just, you know, it's.

Speaker 6 You have to not know what you're doing.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I don't know what to do.

Speaker 8 Yeah, because otherwise I'd do it differently for sure.

Speaker 7 If you wanted to immediately disarm them and take them down,

Speaker 3 you could have secured that promotion to be the bodyguard, the international bodyguard. Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 8 But it was fun. The challenge was

Speaker 3 great. Yeah, I love it.
I got from your sensitive side.

Speaker 8 I got to explore my sensitive side. I really enjoyed that.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 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 Talk's desire to make it move faster

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 that's what all the hesitation at that lunch table was all about. Because 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

Speaker 3 did not think of you like that.

Speaker 8 You're like a brother to me or something and just completely ruin the relationship but yeah so i i think you know the way i 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 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

Speaker 12 he brought everything to like yeah convince her yeah yeah yeah i mean mook and kaitog is like uh family friends since they were young. So they grew up together in the island.

Speaker 12 And I think Mook never thought of Kaitok in that romantic way.

Speaker 12 But when he confessed, she was like, oh, maybe. Like, okay.

Speaker 12 Let's try it out.

Speaker 3 Let's see what he can do. Yeah.
What's going on? Is he good enough?

Speaker 12 Is he good enough for me?

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 exactly.

Speaker 7 It is kind of a forward move, though, because it's almost like a marriage proposal. But before you've been on a date, right? You're like, well, I've laid it out.
Here's my case.

Speaker 7 Our families know each other. We work at the same place.

Speaker 7 Obviously, we're meant to be together.

Speaker 7 It's just kind of a, it's like, there's, it's like a nervous energy, but it's actually a very strong move, kind of.

Speaker 8 I mean, I think it's close to how I am in real life sometimes.

Speaker 3 You know, that was the you coming out.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 3 And then sometimes I might make them a bit, you know, put off. And it's happened many times.

Speaker 3 Let's all talk about.

Speaker 6 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

Speaker 12 For me, this is my acting debut, so I don't know what to expect on set, to be honest.

Speaker 12 And I was super nervous on the first date with Tame as well. But Tame helped me a lot.
And also Mike and Altai producer as well.

Speaker 12 Everybody just being such a supportive role for me.

Speaker 12 And I really had a lot of fun while shooting.

Speaker 8 Yeah, absolutely. I mean,

Speaker 8 all the way from the cast dinner where we first met.

Speaker 8 It was just amazing, like this 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.

Speaker 6 Say more, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 3 yeah,

Speaker 8 very nice LV white dress, and then you know, I was told by the producer, like, oh, Lisa's here, tame, tame, tame, come, come, and I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, I've gone over here.

Speaker 3 Like,

Speaker 3 your girlfriend see her, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 She was so great because she

Speaker 8 broke the ice immediately, and we had a few drinks and they sat us together for the dinner and after that it was just very smooth and we would just have lunches together, dinners together and just get to know each other and

Speaker 8 make the the connection authentic.

Speaker 12 Because we have to be on set together a lot.

Speaker 12 I want people to really believe that we're friends since we're young.

Speaker 7 Yeah, we did. You feel it right away from the first encounter with the with the moped.

Speaker 8 Just how they're just able to just kind of tease each other.

Speaker 6 How did you guys think about what each of these characters individually wants their life to look like in five years, ten years? Like, did you have a sense of that?

Speaker 6 Does Guy Talk want to be the bodyguard traveling internationally? You know, you were saying that

Speaker 6 Mook is ambitious, right? Like, where do they see themselves post-White Lotus?

Speaker 8 Well,

Speaker 12 I think they're both ready to leave White Lotus if they have

Speaker 12 better opportunity.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 8 I think especially Guy Tong, I mean, I think he's in a little bit of denial. Like, you know, when she was, oh, you know, look at those guys.
They get to travel the world, they get good money.

Speaker 8 And I was like,

Speaker 8 I like my job, you know.

Speaker 12 Watching the car. Yeah, watching it.

Speaker 3 In and out. Yeah, it's great.
He can kind of wander around.

Speaker 8 But I think deep down inside, he did take that. that what she said and you know really think about it and he does slowly I think push himself more at least or at least try

Speaker 8 So, yeah, I mean,

Speaker 8 everything she says to him really has a lot of weight on it.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 For sure.

Speaker 6 Do you think that Mook wants to perform?

Speaker 12 Mook all would love to perform.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 12 If you tell her to like, oh, sing tonight.

Speaker 3 Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3 She's ready. Yeah.

Speaker 3 She crushes it on stage.

Speaker 3 Well, thank you guys so much for talking to us.

Speaker 3 We're loving to see you. Thank you very much.
I love your voice. It's like so busty.

Speaker 3 I wish I could have that voice.

Speaker 6 I can't believe that I was just invited to join Blackpink.

Speaker 7 Basically.

Speaker 6 I'm going to start my intensive dance training tomorrow.

Speaker 7 I thought you started this morning.

Speaker 6 I started in preparation in hope that you would say that to me.

Speaker 6 Okay, now to Sam Navola Blaise Lachlan.

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Speaker 13 The second half of the basketball season is here and the race to the playoffs continues on Prize Picks, the best daily fantasy sports app to cash in on your favorite sports the app is simple pick more or less on at least two players for a shot to win up to a thousand times your cash download the prize picks app today and use code field and get fifty dollars instantly when you play five dollars that's code field on prize picks to get fifty dollars instantly when you play five dollars win or lose you'll get fifty bucks for just playing guaranteed prize picks run your game must be present in certain states visit prize picks.com for restrictions and details here we have sam navola who plays laughlin ratliff welcome to the white loaded Season 3 podcast, and nice to see you again.

Speaker 10 It's nice to see you again, and nice to meet you. I'm very happy to be here.

Speaker 6 I want to know what the casting notice was like. What was the description of Lockhey?

Speaker 10 I remember him being described. God, 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,

Speaker 10 virginal, teen, really awkward. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 I was like, God, this sounds nothing like me.

Speaker 10 don't pigeonhole 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

Speaker 10 half a year and do

Speaker 10 15 callbacks and every time they're like it's getting a little bit closer it's getting a little you know

Speaker 10 and this one it was like I'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

Speaker 3 I love you let's do it

Speaker 6 you are the precise type of virginal team exactly I was like well I'm flattered but yeah

Speaker 10 you're like are you sure I shouldn't play Saxon yeah yeah I was like I think I'm a little too muscly and masculine I feel more like a Saxon yeah exactly the only brutal part about it was that all of our callbacks and I spoke to Sarah Catherine and Patrick about this too were all the day after Christmas

Speaker 10 so we just had the most stress-ridden Christmases where we were just like shaking, waiting to do this thing.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 6 Your character is presented from the beginning as like there, you know, 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.

Speaker 6 Did you have a sense of the character as truly in the middle, truly not knowing where he was going to land?

Speaker 10 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

Speaker 10 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

Speaker 10 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

Speaker 10 a friend. You know what I mean? He's just a really, really deeply insecure, lonely person.
That, like,

Speaker 10 oh, you're, 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?

Speaker 10 Oh, but then you're going to offer it as well. Like, I'll do whatever you want.
You know, in a way, their two worldviews, to their own chagrin, hold no bearing on

Speaker 10 my choices in terms of which one of them I ally with. Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 7 It's really well set up with the very first scene getting to the villa where you're trying to decide which room.

Speaker 7 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? And the same with the decision with Chapel Hill and Duke, right? Yeah.

Speaker 7 And I was like, which way are you going?

Speaker 10 Yeah, I mean, I feel like I relate to that whole

Speaker 10 thing a lot.

Speaker 9 I

Speaker 10 have a specific experience, which is that I dropped out of college to become an actor and I

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 But

Speaker 10 it's uh yeah, it's like growing up a little too fast.

Speaker 7 And um you chose adulthood over the extended adolescence of college.

Speaker 10 Exactly. And I think there's pros and cons to that.
I mean,

Speaker 10 I think the moral of like my character's story is that either way,

Speaker 10 whatever you choose in life, whatever path you choose, like

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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 like tailgated at a part at a college party.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 6 Here in New York, you can just have both for about three decades before anyone tells you about their lives.

Speaker 6 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, then Albie, season two.

Speaker 3 And now you.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I don't know. Did you like, I mean, Lachlan is such a classic youngest.
Yeah, you know,

Speaker 6 was it fun to, I don't know, be the baby?

Speaker 3 It was the baby.

Speaker 10 Yeah, it was totally fun to be the baby. I mean, it's, it's funny, you know, like having Parker was always really like babying me in the scenes in a really sweet.
way.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 6 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, yeah.

Speaker 6 And he's actually like.

Speaker 6 Mom, what are you doing? Yeah, like, how do you understand their relationship, those two characters?

Speaker 10 Those two characters. Well,

Speaker 10 I think Victoria is just like

Speaker 10 incredibly threatened.

Speaker 10 Her whole dynamic of our family is that she thinks everyone wants something from us. You know, we have money.

Speaker 10 She thinks everyone is a sort of leech, and that our family is this unbreakable unit, and that

Speaker 10 everyone wants to fuck us over somehow.

Speaker 6 And yeah, and it felt like that moment was Lachlan kind of calling his mom out on, like, yeah, this is actually like she's nice, yeah, is too overwhelming.

Speaker 7 Yeah, right.

Speaker 9 Exactly.

Speaker 10 Yeah, it's just, it's, 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.

Speaker 7 That never 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

Speaker 7 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?

Speaker 7 That the show is very sympathetic to all the characters, even in their deepest mistakes.

Speaker 7 And so, I'm curious, is that something you felt coming from Mike as the show's being made?

Speaker 10 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

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And even if he writes them doing insane, fucked up, murderous

Speaker 10 things,

Speaker 10 they're still sort of a part of him that he cares for. And there's nothing worse than a movie with like an anti-hero that you just actually hate because it's just boring.

Speaker 10 I think

Speaker 10 you can feel in the writing his love for all of the characters, even the most fucked up ones.

Speaker 6 Lachlan is sort of obsessed with tsunami videos.

Speaker 7 Definitely.

Speaker 6 Something I relate to.

Speaker 6 What do you make of that? Is he afraid that something is going to come undone?

Speaker 10 I think definitely that the tsunami video obsession is a sort of writer's tool by Mike to maybe tease

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And I think people that are obsessed with disasters are generally people who are really lost.

Speaker 10 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,

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And there's still remnants of it today.

Speaker 10 That just highlights the fact that it can all go away in a second.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 6 Like, everyone in the family is aware that it could go away any second in very different ways.

Speaker 10 Exactly.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Like, what are our values, basically?

Speaker 10 And that's sort of the big question with our whole family i think is like 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

Speaker 6 Thanks to our guests, Tame and Lisa and Sam, and we'll see you all next week.

Speaker 7 The White Lotus Podcast is a production of HBO and Campside Media. This episode was hosted by Gia Tolentino and Josh Biharman.
Natalia Winkleman is the managing producer.

Speaker 7 Our associate producers are Allison Haney, Anthony Puccio, and Aaliyah Papes. Sound design and mix by Ewen Leitrimuen.
At Campside Media, our executive producer is Josh Dean.

Speaker 7 For the HBO podcast team, our executive producer is Michael Gluckstadt, senior producer Allison Cohen-Zorokoch, and producer Kenya Reyes. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.