Ep. 1: "Same Spirits, New Forms" with David Bernad and Michelle Monaghan

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Yeah, we've been all over. We've been to Mexico.
We've been to Costa Rica. But we can go wherever, really, because Rick barely works.
I used to be a yoga teacher. Oh wow.

Yeah, that's cool.

But we've been travelling so much, we were going to go back to Bali,

but then one day he woke up and he was like, we're going to Thailand.

Yeah.

And once he gets an idea in his head, you can't argue with him.

Isn't that right, babe? Hello, and welcome to the White Lotus official podcast companion to season three. I'm Gia Tolentino.
And I'm Josh Behrman. We will be your co-hosts throughout this journey in Thailand.
We'll be recapping and breaking down the episodes, discussing some of the larger big picture themes. We'll be speaking with the cast and the crew.
And a few words before we get started. This is the companion podcast, which means we'll be discussing the latest episode of The White Lotus.
So make sure you watch it before you listen, or you will be spoiled. And if you haven't had a chance yet, I strongly recommend you check out the Look Back episodes of this podcast, in which host Evan Ross Katz dives deep into the first two seasons of White Lotus and speaks with everyone from Mike White to Jennifer Coolidge.

You can find those episodes on this very podcast feed.

A little bit about your hosts.

We're both journalists and authors and have both worked in film and television as well.

I'm Josh.

I write for magazines.

I write narrative nonfiction stories. And I have worked in film and TV because many of my stories have been optioned for the movie business.
That's how I know Mike White and Dave Bernad, the creator and producers of the show. Are you holding back your greatest tidbit about this season specifically, which is? I visited the set.
So I was on set while they were shooting parts of the show, and I might actually be in an episode.

I don't know yet.

Well, I'm Gia.

I write for The New Yorker. I'm one of those toxic people that believes, like, but if I went to the White Lotus, I would just have an amazing time and be happy.
funny enough though

I have been to all

three shooting locations

I mean not in connection to specifically

the film funny enough though I have been to all three shooting locations I mean not in connection to specifically the filming of the White Lotus but I have been more or less a vacationer in all three places so I'm an asshole just like the rest of them slash us or you have a deep insight into the whole scope of the show we'll be joined later in the episode by White Lotus EP Dave Burnett and Michelle Monaghan, who plays Jacqueline. Before we get into the recap of the episode, I have a burning question.
Who did you have the most immediate identification with on this season? Well, I have two answers. I'll give you both answers.
Neither of them are perfect, obviously. My first instinct actually was the Walton Goggins character.
Hell yeah, brother. I feel like that.
I feel like sort of leathery burnout phase could be in my future okay i can see it rick the lady in the airport thought you were my dad okay you should get a gentleman's facial no and with a mysterious dark past he is in paradise but miserable i've had that phase of life could be coming back around again in the future and And at the other end, I think probably Lachlan, Sam Nivola's character, the younger brother and the family, that not that particular family, but sort of being the odd man out in a family, right? And feeling like you're trying to figure out who you are and trying to define yourself against your family. My family did not go on vacation.
That was, like, opposed to our ethos. And we certainly wouldn't have been to the White Lotus.
But I could kind of see being that kid and trying to, like, figure out your way and being confused by your own family. And then winding up 40 years later as Walton goes.
You never leave. I am a Chelsea through and through.
You know, I think the cosmos brought us together so that we could get to the root of your issues. No, I'm going to help you get your joy back.
Yeah? Yeah. Good luck with that.
Even if it kills me. You know, every season of this show, I've identified with the person that gets brought there but, like, definitely can't pay for it.
You know what I mean? Although I will say, when I have been to, respectively, Hawaii or Mississippi, like, I never have a bad time on vacation. I believe, like, very—I have a strong, like, moral belief in one should never have a bad time in a beautiful place.
And I don't think I ever have. But again, that's toxic denial on my part.
But Chelsea, just clueless, happy, you know, party girl along for the ride, just trying to get people to get drunk with her. I guess I'm sort of aging out of that phase of my life.
But the part where she's at the bar and meets another girl that's there for no reason, basically, and is just like, should we get pissed? Right. That was where you identified.
Well, the part where I most identified with her, obviously, is when she gets poured the taster of wine and she's like, I'm sorry to complain, but it's actually not very much. She poured me and she doesn't know that it's a normal thing that rich people do.
That was when I was like, oh, she's me. I'm her.
All right, great. Well, I'm sure everybody else is going to be having a rotating identification through all the characters over the course of the season.
So now let's get into the first episode. Okay, so this episode is called Same Spirits, New Forms.
Like all the White Lotus episodes, it's written and directed by Mike White. And like all the season openers, we get, you know, a shot of paradise.
We get a monkey sitting on a tree branch overlooking this gorgeous sort of twilight, paradise, you know, pastel sky Thailand scene. We're meeting a ton of people.
The first two we get are Zion and Amrita. Amrita is teaching Zion to meditate in this beautiful pagoda, and this beautiful scene is broken up by the sound of gunfire.
He leaves the pavilion, he jumps into a pond, trying to stay clear of the gunfire, and then he sees the body, the traditional body in this season floating in the water. I found this to be quite terrifying, actually.
I was really caught up in this opener, which is different from the others, obviously. He's way steep in the water and trying to figure out where to go.
And my mom's out there. And I was really on edge.
I'm like squeamish in like movies or TV that produce anxiety. So this really got me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.
Well, I also think it's like the previous deaths were more or less accidental, right? And this one is you hear a gunfire. You're like, okay.
I mean, someone is shooting to kill. You know at the beginning.

Someone set out to kill somebody. Something has happened.

With more sort of violent intention that was previously there. I love that.
So then we flash back to one week earlier and everybody's arriving and you have the usual sort of socioeconomic and personality dynamics in the choreography of what's happening on the boat. We also get two hotel employees, Mook and Guy Tuck, which I didn't know until about 30 seconds ago.
Yeah. This is Lisa.
This is Lisa from Blackpick. I had no idea.
Yeah. But then you can't when she's so, you know, plays this like buttoned up demure character in this that you it's hard to realize that there's this international global superstar in there.
Yeah, I know. It's funny.
It's like it's different from the idol where Jenny was playing like still an idol, you know. Right.
But here she, Lisa, is playing this health mentor because this hotel has this, like, extreme sort of wellness meditation focus. Guy Tuck is a security guard.
He's, like, very clearly in love with her. Who wouldn't be? She seems to be keeping him a little bit more at the distance.
We can't really tell whether she's just being demure or if she's like, no, no, no, you're my friend. Please leave me alone.
Yeah, there's, like, a pretty dynamic going on here. I honestly, I love their vibe.
There's that one scene where later in the episode where they're flirting and she is talking to the bodyguards of the hotel's owner and he's sort of being protective. And I found them to have really wonderful, very sincere chemistry.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah, totally. So, of course, I'm wondering, like, what's, are they going to wind up together? What's going to happen? Is it going to be, like, pretty in pink? Is she going to go away? I want them to wind up together.
I do, too. And I kind of feel like maybe they will.
I don't know. And then we have our recurring character.
Yeah. And then we have Belinda.
So I'm here the whole three months. Yes.
You know, you sure know how to treat a burnt-out bitch. It was very nice to see her again on screen.
So we see that she's in Thailand and she's there studying. And she's greeted by Porn Chai, the masseuse at this White Lotus.
Belinda's the one that you most want to have, like the triumphant walk away with huge bags of... And yet somehow, even seeing how excited she is and how she's like, I really have a good feeling.
You're like, oh no, Belinda. I know, I know.
Having just re-watched season one, I was struck again how emotionally damaging her encounter with Tanya was and how she's kind of left holding. She's been recovering for the last few years.
And here she is. Yeah, she's finally getting her chance to trust again.
And then something and then there's going to be a gunfight. Yeah.
OK, then there's the Ratliffs, the family of five and upper class family from North Carolina, clearly like extremely invested in tradition. What did you think about the accent work here? Well, I was, there was a little bit of like, they step off the boat and open their mouths.
And so I thought it was coming on strong, but you say it's spot on. I grew up in Texas.
I went to school at the University of Virginia. This exact kind of family is as familiar to me as the back of my hand.
I was legitimately, you know, this is as the kids say, but I was literally screaming. How was your flight? We flew over the North Pole.
So Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey play Timothy and Victoria Ratliff. Victoria, the mom, just seems to really be on a steady drip of lorazepam.
But that part at dinner where she's like, scratch my arm. Mom.
Mom. You were asleep.
Scratch my arm. Okay.
Feels so good. Their three impeccably named adult children are Saxon, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, Piper, played by Sarah Catherine Hook.
Piper, incredible name. Today, she would be Hadley, but this girl this age is Piper.
And Lachlan, played by Sam Nivola. They normally vacation in the Caribbean there in Thailand because Piper is a senior at Chapel Hill.
She's writing a thesis on Buddhism and Parker Posey's character also went to Chapel Hill. Lachlan is deciding whether to go to Duke or Chapel Hill.
The oldest son went to Duke as did the dad. This is a classic sort of house divided.
Victoria assures the sort of very funny staff member named Pam who's assigned to them. There's a part where she's like, how good for you.
How good for you. Or whatever.
Yeah. How wonderful for you.
Yeah. But she like assures them they're a totally normal family, which, yeah, you know, why not? We are a normal family.
I like them. They have to assure strangers.
Yeah, yeah. Well, like, yeah, they like not only normal but also kind of the best, clearly.
They're invested in that idea. They're all – the men are upset about there not being sort of Wi-Fi privileges in the villa.
What's the Wi-Fi? Oh, yeah. We don't actually have Wi-Fi in the villas.
Okay. I think it's a great idea.
The only people I want to see are right here and here. All right, honey, I just...
I'm sick of these phones. It's not realistic.
We will be keeping the phones, Pam. Okay.
But it probably would have been better for the father if he had just locked up that phone because at some point of the episode he gets like the nightmare call from a journalist being like, hi, we're trying to close this story in two days and we need to know, can you give me a call back as soon as possible? Right. Nightmare call.
That it sounds like he deserves it every way. As journalists, we know the subject should not answer that call.
Yeah. If we can't reach you, it's better for you.
I'm actually astonished he called that guy back. Yes, right.
Like he wouldn't have called. Like in real life, he's not calling us back.
Right, if he knew what it was about or even had any inclination. There is this immediate sort of psychosexual thing.
Yeah, bizarre. Where, like, there's three bedrooms, and they're trying to decide, like, where they're going to distribute the two kids.
And Saxon tells Piper, like, he can't stay with you because you have full-grown genitals now. There's this, like, gender breakdown also in the family where the women went to Chapel Hill.
And there's clearly, like, a sort of gendered thing. It's like, are you going to fall in line with the alphas? Yes.
Because of the profoundly disturbing end of the episode where you think that Saxon is about to just watch porn, you know, jerk off in front of his little brother to show him, like, what you're supposed to do with the penis. Like, I honestly thought he was going to do that, and I'm just very glad we didn't have

to, you know.

Witness that? I'm not, like, a squeamish person, but I probably would rather not see, you know. Incest.
See the incest get, I'd rather see it get paced out teaspoon by teaspoon as it is going to presumably throughout the season rather than get it all at once in episode one. so next we have

Jacqueline, Lori, and Kate at once in episode one.

So next we have Jacqueline, Lori, and Kate.

To Thailand.

To monkeys.

To self-care.

And a week of new memories.

Yes!

They're, you know,

three tight girlfriends

all the way through basically their young adult life, and they've stayed friends and now they're getting their long-awaited vacation together. And this also is a really great complex of characters that is so much as is laid out in just their first real introduction.
And, of course, by the way, what could go wrong when three longtime girlfriends go on vacation? Oh, yeah. I mean, I could go on this for an hour.
There is objectively unequal distribution of power and ability and money, really. I mean, like, and the ability to move in the world where it's kind of, I mean, Carrie Coon is gorgeous, but they're kind of trying to, she is styled and she moves.
She's supposed to be the dowdy one.

She's supposed to be the dowdy one, which is crazy because it's Carrie Coon. But, you know,

she's very clearly positioned that way. And the other two look like the movie stars that they are

the entire time are styled as such, have gotten as they admit, you know, impeccable work at their,

you know, prestige, unnamed doctors or whatever. But the dynamic between women that are trying so

hard to not admit that there is tension and competitiveness in any way is one of the funniest

Thank you. doctors or whatever.
But the dynamic between women that are trying so hard to not admit that there is tension and competitiveness in any way is one of the funniest things to watch,

if not necessarily to experience in the world. Can't wait to see what happens.

I'm like, how is it going to go down? And how does the tape play forward? And also,

you can kind of see, I feel like you can roll the tape back even, right? And see that like,

oh, in high school, the distribution of power and social currency was present then, too, right? Oh, yeah. The moment that I found most painful about the dynamic between the three women is when they are trying to complain about their lives.
And Jacqueline is, you know, saying she can't have a bad day in public anymore. And Kate is saying, she doesn't know if someone really likes me.
For me, I mean, I think I'm cool, but what if they just want a board seat or whatever? And they're just reassuring each other back and forth, like, we're so lucky, we're so lucky. And nothing is, you know, if there's anything worse than people, like, being huge assholes, it's people being huge assholes while insisting they are so lucky and so grateful.
Like, that is an echelon of pure sort of madness and cringe that I hope this season pushes into so hard because it makes me want to die. Lastly, we've got Chelsea and Rick, who I love immediately.

Chelsea's played by Amy Le Wood.

Rick is played by the iconic Walton Goggins, giving so much Walton Goggins.

Yeah, you need to sort your shit out.

You've got issues.

I've got issues?

Mm-hmm.

You're the one who's crazy.

She's a former yoga teacher, just along for the ride, trying to get him to relax, being like, should we get fucked up?

Should we try some tantric?

Would you like that? And he's just so angry the whole time. And so like they get into, you know, finally he gets sick of her, kicks her to the bar.
Like one of the last scenes of the episode, she befriends another girlfriend, another beautiful girlfriend of an older man, and they decide to get drunk together. And they talk about all the bald white men that are in Thailand, And we sort of pan around to the respective bald white men.
And then to this specific one who is? Greg, Tanya's husband. The employee of Black Lives Matter.
Yes, exactly. Bureau of Land Management.
He's here. Did we find out exactly about the shady thing going on? Like, was he trying to kill her for insurance money? I, well, they're married, so he would inherit the money, presumably.
And I don't know if it's ever explicitly revealed. That they had sort of a profit-sharing agreement with the gays? Yes.
But we are assuming that he's— That's my assumption. Maybe we will find out otherwise.
And he's been living in Thailand for a year. We learned that from Chloe, the girlfriend.
Right, right, yeah. And it's, you know, Thailand is the type of place to sort of, you know, disappear with your money, which, by the way, is, I'm wondering what you make of Walton's quest.
Like, he's here for some reason. He was arrested.
He can't go to Australia. He's got enough money to be there.
What is his past? I have no idea. Do you? I don't know either.
Well, you should know. This is your guy.
I know. I know.
I know. Imagining myself as him, I can see a lot of scenarios where I would wind up there.
I have no idea. I have a hunch that's probably going to be wrong that there's some sort of business past.
So I know you have a theory about the White Lotus. The metathesis? Yeah.
What is your metathesis about White Lotus? Well, I have a thesis about season one, which now relates to season three. And so I feel sort of, you know, semi-vindicated so far.
But I feel like season one is, despite the kind of surface level dealing in ideas of wealth and privilege and so on, that it actually was this kind of Buddhist parable. It's about how basically everybody is wrestling with their own internal suffering and they're all unhappy.
Even Shane, the rich guy, right, who's like, we're in the wrong suite, we need the pineapple suite.

And you think he's the villain, but it's just that he's on vacation and he also can't be happy, right? Like, upstairs or downstairs, everybody is, like, having this internal suffering. And they don't know where to find meaning or happiness, right? That's what everybody's kind of looking for.
And they don't even realize it. And then over the course of that season, the only people who get off the wheel are Armand, because he dies with a smile on his face.
You could call him that, sure, yeah. I mean, he starts quoting Tennyson about death is the end of life and all this stuff.
And you see him kind of like let go, basically, of himself. And then Quinn, the son, communes with nature.
The guy's addicted to his phone and porn. And he communes with nature and sees a whale and then gets on the boat and all of a sudden just escapes.
That's the only way out basically is to like dive into the ocean, right? But sorry, your theory is that the real sort of thematic subtext is that desire is the that causes suffering. Yeah.
I mean, well, that's the nature of Buddhism, right? The four noble truths. The first one is all life is suffering.
And the second one is suffering is caused by needs or attachments or desires. And so that is, I feel like, what season one is actually about, kind of underneath everything.
But season two is too. I mean, my argument is that like all plots are about this.
That desire is what gives something stakes in the thing that instigates the plot, right? Everybody has to have needs. And the needs are what puts the spikes in the plot, you know? But right, it's interesting because now we are in the home of this ideology.
Yes. Now we're in a place where it's like the whole country is like this blank canvas for people's spiritual seeking.
Right. And it's a Buddhist country.
That seems to be the difference that the hotel is configured around awareness and spirituality and gratitude really overtly. You know, I mean, it was interesting that the part of the Buddhist writing that Piper is listening to on audiobook is about identity being a prison,

that we build a prison, we step into it, we lock it. Identity is a prison.
No one is spared this prison. Rich man, poor man, success or failure.
We build the prison, lock ourselves inside, then throw away the key. The guy says identity is a prison.
I think that is what the show is about. Okay, that is the headline.
I mean, we're supposed to take it as that. Yeah, and then he says no one is spared, rich, poor, whatever.
And I think that that is why I feel like that's what is happening in season one, too. And in that respect, I think in general, Mike is very sympathetic to all the characters.
There are no real villains. Nobody is a bad person.
But this time there's someone with a gun. There might be a—you know what I mean? Yes, right.
It's going to—well, yes, exactly. This time it's going to be on purpose.
Somebody's going to be killed on purpose. Yeah.
Or perhaps. But even so, I think that whatever motivations, whatever happens that leads people to that place, I feel like the show and Mike is fundamentally sympathetic to that because it's all born out of whatever vulnerability and human frailties that people have that lead them to question themselves, to worry about who they are and what is meaningful.
Even in this episode of the family and the three women, at a certain point, they catalog what they have. They all catalog what they have.
So you know something's going to get lost, right? And then we're going to see what happens. Your kids are gorgeous.
You're beautiful homes. You're totally winning life.
Well, look at you. Now you've found the man of your dreams.
Oh my god. Who would have ever thought? Right? I think there's also something funny happening in the writing, too, which is like being aware of something is not morally additive, necessarily, right? Yes.
There on like, okay, like being self-aware or just being aware of suffering, of privilege or whatever. That scene is somehow redemptive when in fact it's not.
You can be completely aware and still be doing the same horrible shit. In fact, it can be self-justifying.
Exactly, yeah. And I feel that there is something funny going on in the writing where previously the characters were often not self-aware.
They were taking their experiences for granted, the ability to be at these gorgeous places.

And they're more sort of aware and self-conscious here, perhaps because they've chosen to go to a

place that's kind of wellness and awareness focused. And I think that that will be like this

kind of growing tension and joke in the writing where everyone is so aware of their blessings. And it makes them actually so much worse.
Now we have the pleasure of talking to Michelle Monaghan, who plays Jacqueline Lemon, famous TV star on the show. So excited to be here, you guys.
Oh my gosh, just being here with the three of us? I'm in heaven. I would sleep in a tree.
Michelle, your character comes with a backstory that is supposed to be immediately legible to the viewer and is. You're a big star.
The owner of the hotel is dying to meet you. I wanted to ask you, what are the pleasures as a movie star of playing a movie star? Like, what does that allow you to get to do? Well, I'll tell you what, I don't know if there were any pleasures in reading that I was going to be playing someone that was famous that's a television star.
In fact, if anything, it felt like it hit a little too close to home. It felt a little confronting because I was like, wait, how do I play something that on paper appears so close to me in terms of the job, right? So the initial fear of reading that that was my career, I was like, oh gosh, this feels a little meta.
But after I got beyond the idea that she was this actress, which, of course, I could relate to very much, it was really just getting to kind of discover all of the complexities of her, which are obviously well beyond who I am or anything like that. Yeah.
Tell us, as you read through all the scripts, what were those nuances that emerged for you that deepened the part for you and showed you the specificity of who Jacqueline was going to be? And specifically, that was not you, right? I think that, you know, it was interesting to me was this idea that she, you know, she has these lifelong best friends and she wanted to take them on vacation you know and I feel like she kind of felt like she owes it to her girlfriends that maybe they're not in that position to be able to do that and I think that at the same time while she was excited to kind of foot the bills to kind of fund this this girl's trip that maybe she secretly liked as well to have the

upper hand and how she kind of manipulates that a little bit. And I think that's something that Mike obviously writes with such nuance and such subtext.
But I think that he really wanted us to into that kind of that that ever evolving power dynamic. This idea that one's kind of the perpetrator, one's the peacemaker, one's the victim, and it's constantly shifting, right? And so kind of finding our respective roles in each of those dynamics, that kind of how that plays out and that kind of shifts.
and I think that she, Jacqueline, likes to appear to be in control, you know, but I think at the same time she really wants to just be reckless and to kind of lose control. So I think there's a real duality to her and definitely a duplicity that we start to see.

We get to see in her as the show progresses. And that's the beautiful gray area of all the characters, right, is that they all are a little bit duplicitous.
And certainly this season's theme, which is sort of spirituality and life and death. You really see

every character being confronted with that existential kind of crisis of like, who am I,

what am I doing here? But I think, you know, what's really relatable with the three ladies is

this, the way that we explore the way that we've been kind of conditioned as women to

Thank you. with the three ladies is this the way that we explore the way that we've been kind of conditioned as women to compare ourselves to one another to judge ourselves this thing that we're always confronted with our own life's choices and questioning our very lives based on other women's sort of failures or successes.
And so I really love that idea of that because even though it's heightened, of course, in White Lotus, I think it's something that we can all relate to as women specifically. Completely.
The grass is always good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We've all seen relationships like that. We've all been in situations like that.
It's just very relatable. Yeah, there's something in there about the three of them have been friends for so long that any decision that any one of them makes, it's personal to the other two.
It's somehow a referendum. It's somehow a judgment.
Some shadow is cast over the other two no matter what yeah yeah and i think that's what's so brilliant what you know what mike did and i and i and i think in my my conversations with him kind of building out the characters and stuff you know his inspiration really was you know i think he was a sidekick to a vacation that he went on that he witnessed like a lot of this kind of behavior or just sort of these comparisons. And he was like, man, it's rough out there being a woman, you know, and like, no kidding, man.
And so these women are all kind of mirrors to each other, right? You know, they have this shared history, right? The shared past. And then, of course, they grow up.
And their lives take very different directions and different paths. They live in different cities.
And then, you know, you can't help but look at, like, one path and go, God, that sounds like, that looks pretty good. Like, looks like she kind of just fucking nailed it, you know? She's got everything.
She's got it all. That plays out really intensely in this dynamic, in this girl's trip.
And that question of, like, trying to have it all. Or like, oh, no, no, and I did this.
This toxic positivity and this quest for perfectionism that we have as women. I'm nodding along.
Except you, Jack. You look amazing.
You look amazing. But you look incredible.
You look incredible. We've been debating what the relationship between the three women was as girls.
In high school or junior high? Was Jacqueline sort of the queen bee and the other two are vying for her attention? Are they all on an equal playing field? And now because of her career, she's sort of emerged on top. Yeah, I mean, I think we spoke a lot about that.
I think Mike had some interesting inspiration, you know, as soon as he just tells it like it is, but, you know, he really wanted the ladies, and I say, this is a quote from Mike, to all look like a big blonde blob. He really wanted us, like, baseline to really feel like we were kind of interchangeable, right? Despite then the nuance that we all sort of developed in mind together.
You know, initially, I would say that, you know, probably we all sort of looked the same when we were younger. And then all of a sudden, maybe Jacqueline was starting to be perceived as kind of this beautiful person.
And then that kind of ruffled some feathers. And she started to be maybe put on a pedestal, you know, from probably junior high or high school and, you know, kind of went on to have this success as an actor.
And for Jacqueline, I mean, I think she's sort of, she has a love-hate relationship with being put on a pedestal, but I suppose the only thing that could be worse than um be on the pedestals not being put on a pedestal you know i think that she has a real she's very conflicted in the way that she you know wants attention and and that what drives her and i'm sure that there was a lot of deep-rooted sort of things that kind of took place for all of them. I think there were some things in high school that maybe Jacqueline did that they'll never forgive her for.
I think there are some things that maybe then those patterns continued to maybe rear their ugly head. But then I think one of the other things that's interesting that Mike delves into is the way that we remember things.
Well, and you were like, this shows up in the first episode when the women are watching the mask performance. You know what this reminds me of? When we did that sketch in school and we were all one person.
And Jacqueline, of course, was the face. And we hid behind you and I had my hands and some shoes and I was your feet and I was the arms.
They all have clearly this ingrained memory of having been sort of of Jacqueline as the star and the face and they're like, we were your feet. And Jacqueline's like, I don't remember.
Oh, of course, you're the pretty face. And Jacqueline was like, what? What are you talking about? And it left an impact on them and Jacqueline's like, oh like oh yeah I think that's the clue that she was the preeminent one yeah she doesn't remember this performance that's the like they're like what are you talking about like that's not at all how that happened and then you're looking at the other one like are you kidding me no it happened this way and then we're all completely stumped because we don't know what the reality is and i think that was really a great way that mike was able to kind of infuse that kind of confusion and that like you don't know who to kind of even root for at that point and so there's like some everyone's bringing a little bit of their baggage and so the way that mike uses those conversations but they're gossiping about one another one leaves the room and so gooey and juicy gossipy but it's sort of that faux that faux care right that faux like that that toxic positivity you're like oh i know i must love her so much you know and i was i was we were discussing we were talking about it yesterday And I was like, this is, you know, deeply familiar to me as a woman.
Yeah, right. The framework that this sort of when one person leaves the room or when you're on a side chat where it's like there is a specifically feminized way of laundering the most unkind impulses through the most kind language, you know.
Wow. That's a deep statement right there.
You know, and it's just like, I just want her to be happy, you know, and you're just saying the meanest shit. It's so good.
I mean, I remember reading those lines and it was so wild. Actually, that scene, I think, was in our audition for the show.
And I remember, you you know we got three scenes and he asked me to specifically audition for the role of Jacqueline and um Leslie for Kate and then of course um Carrie for um Laurie uh however he had a really unique way of of auditioning he had me say a lot of Kate and Lori lines and then he had them actually say

a lot of um kate and lori lines and then he had them actually say a lot of like jacqueline and kate lines and then like you know he mixed it all up because he wanted us all to kind of um share the same qualities again again like it was such a unique and and so when we got the role i was like we all kind of got the material and we were all like oh we're so confused mike we thought we thought you know jacklyn was saying this line we thought we thought this was good kate's storyline and he was like no i just wanted to see you all like this and i was like oh my gosh you know he's there's such a method to his madness that's incredible yeah his process is so It's so cool. It's interesting.
In this episode is when when we're getting to know all the three ladies, I think Lori, Carrie Coon, says, it's like we're all mirrors of each other. It's like I'm looking in a mirror.
That's right. I look at you two and it's like I'm looking in a mirror.
Well, and that's the thing. It's like, I feel like it makes that sense.
She's talking about in the youth, right? When you're kind of learning through who you are and your friends do mirror you and you discover who you are by the mirroring of social life with your deepest friends. But then as you get older, the mirror means something different.
It's like mirror, mirror on the wall, right? Right. Like it's the trick mirror.
Yeah, it's the trick mirror.

And so then now the mirror is actually a comparative mirror and it's telling you something

different about yourself by the gaze at your friends, right? And then that's what starts

to unfold throughout. And you see all that just in that one or two scenes.
It's so well drawn.

So I think we're close to running out of time, but I have a dumb question if you will humor me i love dumb questions there's really no dumb question well we've been debating the key question it's a key question really here i love it extremely curious about what jacklyn lemon's show is it's never stated right it hasn't been yet but like what are we talking here like there is so it's it. Mike really, you know, that everybody kind of wanted to know what that what it was.
Is she a lawyer with Alzheimer's? Is it like a Grey's Anatomy vibe? Like, is it 24? It's so funny. Like, Mike made a conscious choice, like not not to decide what it was.
And he didn't want me to decide what it was either. I I was like, wow, yeah.
And it was a question that I got from all of the cast, I think at one point, and they were like, which show is Jacqueline on, you know? Because it's obviously everybody recognizes from the show. And I was like, doesn't matter, does it? It didn't matter.
Like you were able to let it be a blob. You didn't get to know she was, you know, homeland.
Exactly, exactly. And I think that sort of helps to being an actress where it's like, I get people that come up to me all the time.
And they're like, are you on that? What is that? And I can look them up and down in a split second and I'll be like, I'll be like, faint Honor right and they'll be like you know they're like yes yes and I'll be like source code they're like yes I love that movie you know I think of that kind of action where they kind of can't put their finger on it what it was but you can read them but they can read but I can read them you know it's so it's sort of sort of interesting. Yeah.
So that wasn't really imperative. So maybe I'll, maybe it'll reveal itself.
But I remember finally, you know, I asked life towards the end because the cast wouldn't give up on it. And he was like, I don't know.
It doesn't matter. And I was like, you're right.
It doesn't matter, dude. Michelle, thank you so much for talking to us.
It was such a pleasure. Yes, this was really fun.

Thank you.

And thanks to everyone for tuning in. It's a really fun ride.
Enjoy the rest of the season. So, Josh, what do you think the show that Jacqueline stars in is? Is it a Grey's Anatomy? Is it a good wife? I think she is the newly elevated head of a spy agency.
And she finds out that there's a subversive element within the agency. She has to root it out by herself.
Yeah, great. We're gonna pitch this.
Yeah, exactly. We've developed this.
Well, we're gonna, we'll pitch it to Bernad. Yeah, pitch it to Bernad.
Our next guest. Our next guest is Dave Bernad, the executive producer of White Lotus and an old pal of mine.
I'm looking forward to chatting with him. All right.
We're now joined by White Lotus EP, Dave Bernad. Good to see you.
How's it going? This is a dream, Josh, to be interviewed by you. At long last.
It's taken me 20 years. Have you guys been friends for 20 years? Almost.
Almost, yeah. That's how I got a free trip to Thailand.
Okay, so let's talk about Thailand. Was it always the plan to come here for season three? No.
At the very beginning, if I had to bet money, we were going to end up in Japan. And I think Mike and I have always had just a deep appreciation and kind of love of Japanese culture and Japan in general.
And when we set out to, we were going to go scout Japan and HBO said to us, you know, can you just check out one other country? And so when you kind of boil down the list of Southeast Asian countries that have a rebate and have a crew base and are film friendly and the weather worked for our dates, it was really only Thailand. So we said, okay, let's scout Thailand first.
We'll appease HBO and then we'll go on to Japan. And a fun fact is Mike, who was twice on the amazing race had been eliminated twice in both times, the elimination station was in Koh Samui.
So Mike always had this kind of aversion to Thailand. So I would never, ever have thought we'd end up in Thailand when we started.
Didn't you, I mean, we were talking about this, and you were saying that you were originally drawn to Japan, but to place the story there juxtaposes the cultures differently. Like, the culture of Japan is so specific that you kind of have to embed the characters and how they're relating to Japanese culture, whereas Thailand is a more sort of neutral territory for visitors to come and they don't have to navigate the local culture in the same way.
Yeah. I mean, we started off in Bangkok and then we went from Bangkok to Phuket to Krabi and then up to Chiang Mai.
I think we just discovered just how incredibly beautiful the culture is in Thailand and Buddhism and also the warmth of the people can't be understated. I think the real turning point for us was we were in Chiang Mai and Mike had bronchitis and he ended up in the hospital.
We were supposed to fly to Chiang Rai and we ended up staying a couple extra days there in Chiang Mai. And we put Mike on this nebulizer, which I guess is like a really strong steroid.
And he- What's that? I never heard of a nebulizer. You never had to do one for your baby? No.
It's like this little inhaler mask thing. Oh, wow.
Okay. And he ended up hallucinating and he hallucinated the season and he came in, he got out of the hospital.

Yeah.

He came into the van.

I was there and he goes, I had the most vivid dreams last night.

I was on this steroid and I couldn't sleep.

And he told me what he dreamt and that is what we shot.

Wow.

It is almost exactly that.

And it came to him as a vision.

Josh, should we do recreational nebulizers?

Yes, seriously.

This is the breakthrough we might need.

I have vivid dreams already.

Do I need to be writing them down?

Yes, you should.

I think the way, I remember him telling

me just how incredibly well

he was treated by the nurses and how much they cared about

him. He just kind of fell in love

with Thailand. When we left Thailand to fly to Japan, I was like oh yeah we're gonna end up shooting in thailand and we got to japan and i think kind of to your point the interest of the show is never to look down or make fun of local culture and i think japanese culture is so specific and it's so beautiful and i think to do a show set in japan you're going to end up getting into things we didn't want to get into where Thailand is really about Buddhism and Buddhism itself kind of permeates everywhere in our experience.
And I think that just felt like a more ripe place to kind of investigate Eastern versus Western philosophies. Yeah.
Well, every season and its themes end up connecting to the setting in a particular way. Could you talk more about how this season's themes came to sort of coalesce around Thailand? Yeah.
I think since I've known Mike, and I've known Mike 20 years too, he's always been interested in Buddhism, something that's come up a lot. He's read a lot.
So I think for us, once we got there, the Buddhist ideals and kind of Buddhist storytelling was something that was already in his head. As we traveled around, you kind of realized how if you can do something in Thailand, that's going to be a subject matter you're going to have to tackle.
So I think thematically he was already in. And then before Mike starts writing, he goes and lives, you know, he lived in Sicily for three or four months.
He lived in Thailand for three or four months. And he kind of went around and investigated different cities and local culture.
And he met a lot of really interesting people. And I think through those travels, kind of he pulled out some of the thematic ideas.
And he met a couple funny characters when he had a little adventure. And I think that led to some of the stories in the show.
Well, it's interesting that Thailand was the second thought because the sort of defining thing about visiting Thailand is the Buddhist culture. Was the Buddhism there when you were also thinking about Japan or did it really come to the surface in this dream? By the way, G wants to know exactly what was in the nebulizer.
Mike's going to have to answer that. But I would say we were very ignorant about Thailand, and that's what's so exciting about the show.
You know, in Thailand, they call it soft power. And soft power is this idea of them trying to figure out how to export Thai culture.
Because really what Americans know about Thailand is probably from the hangover. and it's this idea of like, it's a party country of like sex tourism, which that's not what Thailand is, obviously.
And for us, we were kind of ignorant in the second you land, the second you get in there and you really immerse yourself, you realize just how beautiful Thailand is. So it kind of just really coalesced in a natural way.
You know, similar to Sicily, we were never going to – I would have bet money we were going to shoot in France. And we were in Sicily and we were at a hotel and there's all these heads everywhere.
And we asked the guy, what are these heads? And he told us a story about, you know, this more soldier who came and fell in love with a local Sicilian woman. And the woman found out that he had a lover back home and she chopped his head off.
And that's what those heads represent is this kind of story about jealousy and infidelity and kind of the history and culture of Sicily. And once we heard that story, I think that opened up what Mike wanted to write in a similar way to us traveling around Thailand, opened up this idea of doing a season about Buddhism and the beauty of Thailand.
Well, and as Josh has been talking about with his private theory about the show, I mean,

the entire show has in a way been about desire being the thing that drives people to suffering.

And so here you really get it full force.

I know I feel very vindicated now. You know, my whole thesis about season one is Buddha's

parable. And then as season three is unfolding, it's like, aha, here it is now on the surface.

Okay, so I think we knew, people knew coming into this season that Natasha Rothwell was going to come back. We were going to get Belinda.
But it comes as a shock in the first episode when Greg is one of the many white bald men sitting at the White Lotus. He made it to three.
At what point did y'all know that Greg was going to be, or Gary, perhaps I should say, at what point did y'all know he was going to be in this season? I think right away. I mean, again, if you had told me that John Grice would still be in the show season three when we were shooting season one, I would never have believed you, but John's amazing.
He's an amazing actor, amazing human being. And I think Mike immediately had this idea of how to keep Jennifer Coolidge's story going in a way that would surprise audiences.
For Mike, the Tanya storyline has evolved as kind of a through line. And he had this brilliant idea of how to keep that storyline in the show.
And once we knew Natasha was in, Mike had the brilliant idea of bringing Greg back and seeing what happens when those two cross. So I've got a question.
The White Lotus is one of the best shows to play the Sex and the City, Who Are You on the Show game? And I've been discussing it with Josh ad nauseum. Well, first, can you guess which character Josh identifies with the most on this season?

Yes.

Okay, who is it?

It's Walton Goggins.

Of course.

Yeah.

Can you guess who Dave identifies with the most?

Oh, that's a good question.

Probably also Walton Goggins.

Is that the correct answer?

Yeah.

I wonder.

Well, it's funny because if you spend enough time with Mike, you're going to end up as a character in one of his movies or shows because he's always paying attention. And he's really good at like picking up on funny moments you don't even realize he's paying attention.
So there's a lot of me, I think, in the show. That or I'm a narcissist and I'm just projecting.
You're distributed amongst. Yeah.
There is definitely one line in there that i had told him as an anecdote when we were in bangkok um i had gone out for drinks with someone and she told me that the women in bangkok call these bald men lbhs losers back home so i went back and told mike the next day which i was really excited when that ended up in the script yeah you'll notice a lot a lot of bald white guys in Thailand. Yeah.
The locals call them LBHs. Losers back home.
Oh. I have a question for you about how the show is very unusual in that you have, the pilot does give you obviously a hint of like something bad happens.
The first one, it's fairly mild. In number two, well, probably foul play.
And then in this one, now, you know there's gunfire. There's like intentional violence coming.
And so it's kind of like ratcheting up what the stakes are going to likely be from the cold open basically. But then season one is very simple ultimately, right? The whole action is motivated by they got the wrong hotel room.
And then in season two, there is like a murder plot and stuff that happens. So in season three, is this plot-wise going to be more complicated? Like where is this headed? Yeah.
I mean, you know, it's interesting when we were making the show, HBO picked the show up very quickly in July of 2020 and said, can you get a show shot this year that can be out in 21? And Mike and I had sold and thought about multiple versions of a travel show that examined Upstairs, Downstairs life and the resort culture and colonialism. And Mike started writing really quickly.
And then the idea of this, of the murder plot was something that came later. That was never the idea of the show.
It was always kind of these really specific characters kind of interacting with each other and examining more existential ideas. So this idea of like a plotty show was never something that we set out to make.
And even when we were cutting season one, I remember we got this note about the end of the pilot returning to the dead body to remind people that there's a dead body. And Mike, I remember talking with Mike about it and he was like, I don't think people are really going to care about that.
Like it's like that's, they're going to forget that the dead body exists. That's not really focused on the show.
And obviously, know they're for some people that's a big part of the show and they're hooked into that so season one is really just like as you said a lot of people sitting around a table talking part of that was because of the we had to shoot that in a bubble we couldn't leave the hotel and that was partly why the show was so contained season two is really a bedroom farce and i think mike who's brilliant at plotting and brilliant at writing soap, and I mean that as a compliment, he's like, how do I escalate this and make this a really fun bedroom farce? And I think after the success of season two, he's like, how do I make this even bigger? That's what led us to that and the nebulizer is what led us to season three. It's also funny, like in even season two, when we started shooting, we were still in the throes of COVID.
So we were slightly contained. And this is the first time we made the show with kind of nothing holding us back.
This was a massive production. We were in so many six cities or something and constantly moving and so many hotels.
And I think he kind of wanted to challenge us to kind of go bigger. Getting a vision through a nebulizer after bronchitis, it sounds like a plot on White Lotus, you know?

I know.

Dave, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

No, of course.

Thank you so much for having me, and thank you guys for doing this.

It's been fun.

Yeah, it has been so fun.

Thanks to our guests, Michelle Monaghan and David Bernad, And to all of you guys listening, we'll see you next time. The White Lotus Podcast is a production of HBO and Campside Media.
This episode was hosted by Gia Tolentino and Josh Behrman. Natalia Winkleman is the managing producer.
Our associate producers are Alison

Haney, Anthony Pacillo, and Aaliyah Papes. At Campside Media, our executive producers,

Josh Dean. Sound design and mix by Bart Warshaw at Cocoon Audio.
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