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

Speaker 1 I am so excited for this spa day. Candles lit.
Music on.

Speaker 1 Hot tub warm and ready.

Speaker 1 And then my chronic hives come back. Again, in the middle of my spa day.
What a wet blanket. Looks like another spell of itchy red skin.

Speaker 1 If you have chronic spontaneous urticaria or CSU, there is a different treatment option. Hives during my next spa day? Not if I can help it.
Learn more at treatmyhives.com.

Speaker 2 At blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments. It's about you, your style, your space, your way.

Speaker 2 Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right.

Speaker 2 From free expert design help to our 100% satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows. Because at blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you.

Speaker 2 Black Friday deals are going on all month long. Save up to 45% off site-wide, plus an additional 10% off every order right now at blinds.com.

Speaker 1 Rules and restrictions apply.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's cool. But we've been traveling 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.

Speaker 1 And once he gets an idea in his head, you can't argue with him. Isn't that right, babe?

Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to the White Lotus official podcast, Companion to Season 3. I'm Gia Talentino.

Speaker 3 And I'm Josh Bearman.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 We'll be speaking with the cast and the crew.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 So make sure you watch it before you listen or you will be spoiled.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You can find those episodes on this very podcast feed.

Speaker 3 A little bit about your hosts. We're both journalists and authors and have both worked in film and television as well.

Speaker 1 I'm Josh.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 That's how I know Mike White and Dave Bernadette, the creator and producers of the show.

Speaker 1 Are you holding back your greatest tidbit about this season specifically, which is?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm Gia. I write for The New Yorker.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And I,

Speaker 1 funny enough, though, I have been to all three shooting locations.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 Or you have a deep insight into the whole scope of the show. It's true.

Speaker 3 We'll be joined later in the episode by White Lotus EP Dave Bernard and Michelle Monaghan, who plays Jacqueline.

Speaker 1 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? Hmm.
Well,

Speaker 3 I have two answers. I'll give you, I'll give both answers.
Neither of them are perfect, obviously. My first instinct actually was

Speaker 3 the Walton Goggins character.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah,

Speaker 3 I feel like that. I feel like the sort of leathery burnout phase could be in my future.

Speaker 3 I can see it.

Speaker 1 Rick, the lady in the airport thought you were my dad, okay? You should get a gentleman's facial.

Speaker 3 No. And with a mysterious dark past.

Speaker 3 He's in paradise, but miserable. I've had that phase of life.

Speaker 1 Could be coming back around again in the future.

Speaker 3 And at the other end, I think probably Lachlan, Sam Navola's character, the younger brother in the family, that, not

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 My family did not go on vacation. That was like opposed to our ethos.

Speaker 3 And we certainly wouldn't have been to the White Lotus, but I could kind of see being that kid and trying to figure out your way and being confused by your own family.

Speaker 3 And then winding up 40 years later as Walton Cox.

Speaker 1 You never leave.

Speaker 1 I'm a Chelsea through and through.

Speaker 1 You know, I think the cosmos brought us together so that we could get to the root of your issues.

Speaker 1 No, I'm going to help you get your joy back. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Good luck with that.

Speaker 1 Even if it kills me.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Although I will say, when I have been to respectively Hawaii or

Speaker 1 I 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.

Speaker 1 And I don't think I ever have, but again, that's toxic denial on my part. But but Chelsea, just

Speaker 1 clueless, happy, happy,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 party girl along for the ride, just trying to get people to get drunk with her.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 I was like, that was where you identified that. Well,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You poured me, and she doesn't know that it's a normal thing that rich people do. That was what I was like, oh, she's me, I'm her.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 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 of the season openers, we get a shot of paradise.

Speaker 1 We get a monkey sitting on a tree branch overlooking this gorgeous sort of

Speaker 1 twilight paradise, you know, pastel sky Thailand scene. We're meeting a ton of people.
The first two we get are Zion and Amrita.

Speaker 1 Amrita is teaching Zion to meditate in this beautiful pagoda, and this beautiful scene is broken up by the sound of gunfire.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 season floating in the water.

Speaker 3 I found this to be quite terrifying, actually. I thought I was really caught up in this opener, which is different from the others, obviously.

Speaker 3 He's waist deep 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.

Speaker 3 So this really got me.

Speaker 1 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 gunfire, and you're like, okay, I mean,

Speaker 1 someone is shooting somebody.

Speaker 3 You know at the beginning because someone's sent out to kill somebody,

Speaker 1 right? Like more with more sort of violent intention that was previously there. I love that.

Speaker 3 So then we flash back to one week earlier, and everybody's arriving, and you have the usual sort of socioeconomic and

Speaker 3 personality dynamics in the choreography of what's happening on the boat.

Speaker 1 We also get two hotel employees, Mook and Guy Talk, which I didn't know until about 30 seconds ago that

Speaker 1 this is Lisa. This is Lisa from Blackfig.

Speaker 1 I had no idea. Yeah.

Speaker 3 But then you can't when she's so,

Speaker 3 you know, plays this like button-up demure character in this that you, it's hard to realize that there's this international global superstar kind of in there.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 We can't really tell whether she's just being demure or if she's like, no, no, no, no, you're my friend. Please leave me alone.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there's like a, there's like a pretty and pink dynamic going on here.

Speaker 1 I honestly, I love their vibe.

Speaker 1 There's that one scene where, 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.

Speaker 1 And I found them to have really wonderful, very sincere chemistry. Do you know?

Speaker 3 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 and pink? Is she going to go away?

Speaker 3 I want them to wind up together. I do too.

Speaker 1 And I kind of feel like maybe they will.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 And then we have our recurring character. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then we have Belinda.

Speaker 1 So I'm

Speaker 1 here the whole three months. Yes.

Speaker 1 You know, you sure know how to treat a burnt out bitch.

Speaker 3 It was very nice to see her again on screen.

Speaker 3 So we see that she's in Thailand and she's there studying. And she's greeted by Pornchai,

Speaker 3 the masseuse at this White Lotus.

Speaker 1 Belinda's the one that you most want to have, like the triumphant, you know, walk away with huge bags of copy.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 I know. I know.
Having just re-watched season one, I was struck again how emotionally damaging her encounter with Tanya was.

Speaker 1 That was

Speaker 3 and how she's kind of left holding.

Speaker 3 she's been recovering for the last few years and here she is yeah she's finally gotten her chance to trust again and then something and then there's gonna be a gunfight yeah

Speaker 1 okay then there's the Ratliffs the family of five an upper-class family from North Carolina clearly like extremely invested in tradition what did you think about the 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I was

Speaker 1 legitimately, you know, this is as the kids say, but I was literally screaming. How was your flight? We flew over the North Pole.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But that part at dinner dinner where she's like, scratch my arm.

Speaker 1 Mom,

Speaker 1 mom,

Speaker 1 you were asleep.

Speaker 1 Scratch my arm.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Feels so good.

Speaker 1 Their three impeccably named adult children are Saxon, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, Piper, played by Sarah Catherine Hook, Piper, incredible name.

Speaker 1 Today, she would be Hadley, but this girl this age is Piper.

Speaker 1 And Lachlan, played by Sam Navola. They normally vacation in the Caribbean.
They are in Thailand because Piper is a senior at Chapel Hill. She's writing a thesis on Buddhism.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Victoria assures the sort of very funny staff member named Pam who's assigned to them. There's the part, but she's like, how good for you? How good for you? Whatever.

Speaker 3 How wonderful for you.

Speaker 1 But she assures them they're a totally normal family, which, yeah, you know, why not?

Speaker 3 We are a normal family. I like them.
They have to assure strangers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Not only normal, but also kind of the best, clearly.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 What's the Wi-Fi?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 We don't actually have Wi-Fi in the villas.

Speaker 1 Okay. I think it's a great idea.
The only people I'm going to see are right here in the UK.

Speaker 1 I'm sick of these phones.

Speaker 4 It's not realistic.

Speaker 5 We will be keeping the phones, Pam.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Right. Nightmare call, that it sounds like he deserves it every way.

Speaker 3 As journalists, we know as the subject should not answer that call.

Speaker 3 If we can't reach you, it's better for you.

Speaker 1 I'm actually astonished he called that guy back. Yes, right.
You know, like he wouldn't have called, like, if in real life, he's not called.

Speaker 3 If he knew what it was about or even had any inclination.

Speaker 1 There is this immediate sort of psychosexual

Speaker 1 thing

Speaker 1 where like there's three bedrooms and they're trying to decide like where they're going to distribute the two kids.

Speaker 1 And Saxon tells Piper, like, he can't stay with you because you have full-grown genitals now.

Speaker 1 there's this like gender breakdown also in the family where the women went to chapel hill and and there's clearly like a sort of gendered thing it's like are you going to fall in line with the alphas because of

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Like, I honestly thought he was going to do that. And I'm, I'm just very glad we didn't have to, you know, witness that.

Speaker 1 I'm not like a squeamish person, but I'm probably 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

Speaker 3 so next we have jacqueline lori and kate

Speaker 1 to thailand to monkeys

Speaker 1 to self-care and a week of new memories.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 3 They're, They're, you know,

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 this also

Speaker 3 is

Speaker 3 a really great

Speaker 3 complex of characters that is so much is

Speaker 3 laid out in just

Speaker 3 their first real introduction. And of course, by the way, what could go wrong when three long-time girlfriends go on vacation? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, I could go on this for an hour.

Speaker 1 There is objectively unequal distribution of power and ability and money, really.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, and the ability to move in the world where it's kind of, I mean, Carrie Koon is gorgeous, but they're kind of trying to, she is styled and she's.

Speaker 3 She's supposed to be the dowdy one.

Speaker 1 She's supposed to be the dowdy one, which is crazy because it's Carrie Koon, but, you know, she's, she's very clearly positioned that way.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But the

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Can't wait to see what happens. I don't know.

Speaker 3 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,

Speaker 3 the distribution of power and social currency was present then too, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The moment that I found most painful about the dynamic between the three women is when they are trying to complain about their lives.

Speaker 1 And Jaclyn 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And nothing is, you know, if there's anything worse than people like like being huge assholes, it's people being huge assholes while insisting they are so lucky and so grateful.

Speaker 1 Like that is, that is an echelon of

Speaker 1 pure sort of madness and cringe that I hope this season pushes into so hard because it makes me want to die.

Speaker 1 Lastly, we've got Chelsea and Rick, who I love immediately.

Speaker 1 Chelsea's played by Amy Lou Wood. Rick is played by the iconic Walton Goggins, giving so much Walton Goggins.
Man, you need to sort your shit out. You've got issues.

Speaker 4 I've got issues. You're the one who's crazy.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 And he's just so angry the whole time. And so, like, they get into, you know, finally he gets sick of her,

Speaker 1 kicks her to the bar.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 3 Greg, Tanya's husband.

Speaker 1 The employee of Black Lives Matter. Yes, exactly.
Bureau of Land Management. Yeah.
He's here. Did we find out exactly about the shady thing going on?

Speaker 1 Like, was he trying to kill her for her insurance money? I,

Speaker 3 well, they're married, so he would inherit the money, presumably. And I don't know if it's ever explicitly revealed.

Speaker 1 But they had sort sort of a profit-sharing agreement with the gays. Yes.
Okay, I mean, we are assuming.

Speaker 3 That's my assumption. Yeah.
Maybe we will find out otherwise.

Speaker 1 And he's been living in Thailand for a year. We learned that from Chloe, the girlfriend.
Right, the girlfriend.

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 Walton's quest.

Speaker 3 Like, what he's here for some reason. He was arrested.
He can't go to Australia. Yeah.
He's got enough money to be there.

Speaker 3 What is his?

Speaker 1 I have no idea, do you?

Speaker 3 I don't know either. Well, you should know.

Speaker 1 This is your guy.

Speaker 3 I know, I know. I know.

Speaker 3 Imagining myself as him,

Speaker 3 I can see a lot of scenarios where I would wind up there.

Speaker 3 I have no idea. I have a hunch that's probably going to be wrong, that there's some

Speaker 3 sorted business past.

Speaker 1 So I know you have a theory about the White Lotus.

Speaker 3 The metathesis. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What is your metathesis about White Lotus?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 how

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 You could call it that, sure, yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, he starts quoting Tennyson about death as the end of life and all this stuff, and you see him kind of like let go, basically, of himself. And then

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 That's the only way out, basically, is to like dive into the ocean, right?

Speaker 1 But sorry, your theory is that the real sort of thematic subtext is that, is that desire is the thing that causes suffering.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, well, that's the nature of Buddhism, right?

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 so that is, I feel like what season one is actually about, kind of underneath.

Speaker 1 But season two is too. I mean, I mean, my argument is that like all plots are about this.
That desire is what gives something stakes and the thing that

Speaker 1 instigates the plot, right?

Speaker 3 Everybody has to have needs.

Speaker 1 And the needs are what puts the spikes in the plot, you know?

Speaker 1 But right, it's interesting because now we are in the home of this ideology.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 That seems to be the difference. That the hotel is configured around awareness and spirituality and gratitude really overtly.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 4 Identity is a prison.

Speaker 4 No one is spared this prison.

Speaker 4 Rich man, poor man, success or failure.

Speaker 4 We build the prison, lock ourselves inside, then throw away the key.

Speaker 3 The guy says, identity is a prison. I think that is, that's what the show is about.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's the

Speaker 1 headline. We're supposed to take it as that.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And then,

Speaker 3 and 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, two.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 This time there's someone with a gun. There might be a, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Or perhaps.

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 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.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 They all catalog what they have. So you know, like, it's going to get, something's going to get lost, right? And then we're going to see what happens.

Speaker 1 Your kids are gorgeous. You're beautiful homes.
You're totally winning life. Well, look at you.
Now you found the man of your dreams. Oh my God.
Who would have ever thought? Right?

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Like there's this strange weight placed 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.

Speaker 1 You can be completely aware and still be doing the same when you're talking about it. And fantastically self-justifying.
Exactly, yeah. And

Speaker 1 I feel that there is something funny going on in the writing where previously the characters were often not self-aware.

Speaker 1 They were taking their experiences for granted, the ability to be at these gorgeous places.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 5 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.

Speaker 5 They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as eight minutes at progressivecommercial.com.

Speaker 5 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers. Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.

Speaker 1 Now, we have the pleasure of talking talking to Michelle Monaghan, who plays Jacqueline Lemon, famous TV star on the show. So excited to be here, you guys.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, just being here with the three of us, I'm in heaven. I would sleep in a tree.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I wanted to ask you, what are the pleasures as a movie star of playing a movie star? Like, you what does that what does that allow you to get to do

Speaker 1 well i'll i'll tell you what it 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 and 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's that on paper appears so close to me in terms of the job, right?

Speaker 1 So the initial fear of like reading that that was my career, I was like, oh, gosh, this feels a little meta.

Speaker 1 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, you know, the complexities of her, which are obviously well beyond,

Speaker 1 you know, who I am or anything like that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Tell us, as you read through all the scripts, what were the those nuances that emerged for you, that deepened the part for you and showed you the specificity of who Jacqueline was going to to be.

Speaker 1 And specifically, that was not you, right?

Speaker 1 I think that,

Speaker 1 you know, what was interesting to me was this idea that she,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And I think that at the same time, while she was excited to kind of foot the bill to kind of fund 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.

Speaker 1 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 lean

Speaker 1 into that kind of that ever-evolving power dynamic.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 i think that she jacqueline likes to appear to be in control you know but i think at the same time she really

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 we get to see in her as the show progresses. And

Speaker 1 that's the beautiful gray area of all the characters, right? Is that they all are a little bit duplicitous and certainly

Speaker 1 this season's theme, which is sort of spirituality and life and death, you really see

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 the way that we explore, the way that we've been kind of conditioned as women to

Speaker 1 compare ourselves to one another, to judge ourselves, this thing that we're

Speaker 1 always confronted with our own life's choices and questioning our very lives based on other women's sort of

Speaker 1 failures or successes. And

Speaker 1 so, I really love that idea of that because I, even though it's heightened, of course, in White Lotus, I think it's something that we can all relate to as women specifically, you know? Completely.

Speaker 1 The grass is always, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all seen relations, relationships like that.
We've all been in situations like that. It's just very relatable.
Yeah, there's something in there about

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Some shadow is cast over the other two, no matter what.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And I think that's what's so brilliant, what, you know, what Mike did.
And

Speaker 1 I think in my conversations with him, kind of building out the characters and stuff, you know, his inspiration really

Speaker 1 was, you know, I think it was a sidekick to a vacation that he went on that he witnessed like a lot of this kind of

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 these women are all kind of mirrors to each other, right? You know, they have this shared history, right? This shared past. And

Speaker 1 And then, of course, they grow up and their lives take very different directions and different paths. They live in different cities.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, you can't help but look at like one path and go, God, that that sounds like, that looks pretty good. Like,

Speaker 1 looks like she kind of just fucking nailed it, you know, she's got everything. She's got it all.

Speaker 1 That plays out really intensely in this dynamic and this girl's trip and that question of like trying to have it all or like, oh, no, no. And I did this.

Speaker 1 This, this, this toxic positivity and this quest for perfectionism that we have as women. I'm nodding along.

Speaker 1 Except you, Jack, you look amazing. You look amazing.
But you look incredible. You look incredible.

Speaker 3 We've been debating

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 Are they all on an equal playing field? And now, because of her career, she's sort of emerged on top.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I think we spoke a lot about that.

Speaker 1 I think Mike had some interesting inspiration, you know, sometimes he just tells it like it is, but you know, he really wanted the ladies, and I say it, this is a quote from Mike, to all look like a big blonde blob.

Speaker 1 He really wanted us like baseline to really feel like we were kind of interchangeable, right despite then the nuance that we all we all sort of developed in mind together um 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 this the beautiful person and then that kind of ruffled some feathers and she

Speaker 1 started to be maybe put on a pedestal, you know, from probably her junior high or high school and, you know, kind of went on to have this success as an actor.

Speaker 1 And for Jaclyn, I mean, I think she's sort of,

Speaker 1 she has a love-hate relationship with being put on a pedestal. But I suppose the only thing that could be worse than

Speaker 1 being on the pedestal is 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 that what drives her.

Speaker 1 And I'm sure that there was a lot of deep-rooted sort of things that kind of took place for all of them.

Speaker 1 I think there were some things in high school that maybe Jacqueline did that they'll never forgive her for.

Speaker 1 I think there are some things that maybe then those patterns continue to maybe rear their ugly head.

Speaker 1 But then I think one of the other things that's interesting that Mike delves into is the way that we remember things.

Speaker 1 Well, and you were like, this shows up in the first episode when the women are watching the the mask performance.

Speaker 1 You know what this reminds me of when we did that sketch in school and we were all one person and Jaclyn of course was the face and we hid behind you and I had my hands and some shoes and I was your feet and

Speaker 1 and I was the arms they all have clearly this ingrained memory of having been sort of

Speaker 1 sub you know of Jaclyn as the star and the face and and the and they're like we were

Speaker 1 like oh of course you're the pretty face and jaclyn was like what and what are you talking about left an impact on them and then jacqueline's 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 stunned because we don't know what the reality is

Speaker 1 and i think that was really a great way that mike was able to kind of infuse that kind of confusion and that

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 the way that Mike uses, you know, those conversations, but they're gossiping about one another.

Speaker 1 And one leaves the room and it's so gooey and juicy and gossipy, but it's sort of that faux, that faux care, right? That faux, like that, that toxic positivity.

Speaker 1 You're like, oh my gosh, I just love her so much. You know, and I was

Speaker 1 discussing this. We were talking about it yesterday, and I was like, this is, you know,

Speaker 1 deeply familiar to me as a woman. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The framework that this sort of when one person leaves the room or when you're on a side chat, where it's like,

Speaker 1 there is a specifically feminized way of laundering the most unkind impulses through the most kind language, you know,

Speaker 1 just like that's a that's a deep statement right there. You know, and it's just like, I just, I just want her to be happy, you know, and you're just saying the meanest shit.

Speaker 1 it's so good i mean i remember reading those lines and it was so wild um

Speaker 1 that actually that scene i think was in our audition uh for the show and i remember 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 lori

Speaker 1 uh however he had a really unique way of of auditioning. He had me say a lot of

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 share the same qualities again. Again, like it was such a unique.
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.

Speaker 1 We thought, we thought, you know, Jacqueline was saying this line.

Speaker 1 We thought, oh, 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 he's incredible yeah his process is so wild it's so cool it's interesting in in this episode is when when we're getting to know all the the three ladies I think Lori Carrie Kuhn says, it's like we're all mirrors.

Speaker 1 It's like I'm looking in a mirror. That's right.
I look at you two.

Speaker 1 It's like I'm looking in a mirror.

Speaker 1 Well, and that's the thing.

Speaker 3 I feel like it makes that sense. She's talking about in the youth, right?

Speaker 3 When you're kind of learning 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.

Speaker 3 But then, as you get older, the mirror means something different. It's like mirror, mirror on the wall, right?

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 it's the trick mirror.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's the trick mirror. And so then

Speaker 3 the mirror is actually a comparative mirror, 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.

Speaker 3 And you see all that just in that one or two scenes. It's so well drawn.

Speaker 1 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.
It's really no dumb question.

Speaker 1 Well, we've been debating. It's a key question.
It's a key question, really, here. I love it.

Speaker 1 Extremely curious about what Jaclyn Lemon's show is. It's never stated, right?

Speaker 1 It hasn't been stated yet, but like, what are we talking here? Like, is it there is? So it's, it's really funny. Mike really, you know, that everybody kind of wanted to know what that, what it was.

Speaker 1 Is she a lawyer with Alzheimer's?

Speaker 1 Is it like a Gray's anatomy vibe? Like, is it 24? Like, what is it? It's so funny. Like, Mike made a conscious choice, like, not, not to decide what it was.

Speaker 1 And he didn't want me to decide what it was either, which I was like, wow. Yeah.
And it was a question that I got from all of the cast.

Speaker 1 I think at one point, 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?

Speaker 1 Like, but it didn't matter. Like you were able to let it be a blob.
You didn't get to know she was, you know, that homeland. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Exactly.
You know, and I think that sort of helps too, being an actress, where it's like, I get people that come up to me all the time.

Speaker 1 And they're like, are you on that?

Speaker 1 That, what is that? And I can, I can look them up and down in a split second. I'll be like,

Speaker 1 I'll be like, Bait of Honor, right? And they'll be like, you know, they're like, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 They'll be like, 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.

Speaker 1 But you can read like, but they can read, but I can read them, you know, so it's starting to start kind of interesting. Yeah.
So that wasn't really imperative.

Speaker 1 So maybe I'll, maybe it'll reveal itself. But I remember finally, you know, I asked Mike towards the end because the cast wouldn't give up on it.
And he was like, I don't know. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you. And thanks to everyone for tuning in.
It's a really fun ride. Enjoy the rest of the season.

Speaker 1 So, Josh, what do you think the show that Jaclyn stars in is? Is it a Grey's Anatomy? Is it a good wife?

Speaker 3 I think she is the

Speaker 3 newly elevated head of a spy agency.

Speaker 1 Spy.

Speaker 3 And she finds out that there's a subversive element within the agency, and she has to root it out by herself.

Speaker 1 Yeah, great.

Speaker 3 We're going to pitch this. Yeah, exactly.
We've developed this.

Speaker 3 Well, we're going to pitch it to Bernad.

Speaker 1 Yeah, pitch it to Bernad. Our next guest

Speaker 3 guest is Dave Bernad, the executive producer of White Lotus and an old pal of mine. I'm looking forward to chatting with him.

Speaker 3 All right, we're now joined by White Lotus EP, Dave Bernad.

Speaker 4 Good to see you.

Speaker 3 How's it going?

Speaker 4 This is a dream, Josh, to be interviewed by you.

Speaker 3 At long last.

Speaker 4 It's taken me 20 years.

Speaker 1 Have you guys been friends for 20 years?

Speaker 3 Almost, yeah. That's how I got a free trip to Thailand.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let's talk about Thailand. Was it always the plan to come here for season three?

Speaker 4 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

Speaker 4 Japan in general. And when we set out to, we were going to go scout Japan and HBO said to us, you know, could you just check out one other country?

Speaker 4 And so when you kind of boil down the list of Southeast Asian countries that have a rebate and have like 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 and both times the elimination station was in kosumui 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 originally drawn to Japan but to place the story there juxtaposes the cultures differently.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, we started off in Bangkok, and then we went from Bangkok to Phuket to Krabi and then up to Chiang Mai.

Speaker 4 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. And

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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

Speaker 1 never had to do one for your baby? No. It's like this little little inhaler mask.
Oh. Oh, wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And he ended up hallucinating. And he hallucinated the season.
And he came in.

Speaker 1 He got off the hospital.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 He came into the van. I was there.
And he goes, I had the most vivid dreams last night. I was on the steroid and I couldn't sleep.
And he told me what he dreamt. And that is what we shot.
Wow.

Speaker 4 It is, it is almost exactly that.

Speaker 3 And it came to him with vision.

Speaker 1 Josh, should we do recreational nebulizers? Seriously, yes. Seriously.

Speaker 1 Yeah. This is the breakthrough with my niche.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I have vivid dreams already.
Do I need to be writing them down?

Speaker 4 Yes, you should. And

Speaker 4 I think the way, and I remember him telling me just how incredibly well he was treated by the nurses and how much they cared about him. And he just kind of fell in love with Thailand.

Speaker 4 And when we left Thailand to fly to Japan, I was like, oh yeah, we're going to end up shooting in Thailand. And we got to Japan.
And I think kind of to your point.

Speaker 4 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 it's so beautiful.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And I think that just felt like a more ripe place to kind of investigate Eastern versus Western philosophies. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, every season

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 As we traveled around, you kind of realized how if you're going to do something in Thailand, that's going to be a subject matter you're going to have to tackle.

Speaker 4 So I think thematically, he was already in.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And he kind of went around and investigated different cities and local culture. And he met a lot of really interesting people.

Speaker 4 And I think through those travels, kind of he pulled out some of the thematic ideas. And he met a couple funny characters and he had a little adventure.

Speaker 4 And I think that led to some of the stories in the show.

Speaker 3 Well, it's interesting that Thailand was the second thought because

Speaker 3 the sort of defining thing about visiting Thailand is the Buddhist culture.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 4 Mike's going to have to answer that.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And we asked the guy, what are these heads?

Speaker 4 And he told us a story about, you know,

Speaker 4 this Moor 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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 on the beauty of Thailand.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And so here you really get it full force.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 Okay, so I think we knew, people knew coming into this season that Natasha Rothbaugh was going to come back.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 4 I think right away, I mean, again,

Speaker 4 if you had told me that John Grice would still be in the show season three when we were shooting season one, I hope I would never have believed you. But John's amazing.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 For Mike, you know, 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.

Speaker 4 And once we knew Natasha was in, Mike had the brilliant idea of bringing Greg back and seeing what happens when those two cross.

Speaker 1 So I've got a question.

Speaker 1 The White Lotus is one of the best shows to play the Sex in the City. Who are you on the show game? And I've been discussing it with Josh ad nauseum.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Can you guess

Speaker 1 who Dave identifies with the most?

Speaker 3 Oh, that's a good question.

Speaker 3 Probably also Walton Goggins.

Speaker 1 Is that the correct answer?

Speaker 4 I wonder.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 You don't even realize he's paying attention.

Speaker 4 There's a lot of me, I think, in the show, that, or I'm a narcissist, and I'm just projecting.

Speaker 1 You're distributed amongst me. Yeah.

Speaker 4 There is definitely one line in there that I told him as an anecdote. When we were in Bangkok,

Speaker 4 I had gone out for drinks drinks with someone and she told me that the women in Bangkok call these bald men LBHs, losers back home.

Speaker 4 So I went back and told Mike the next day, which I was really excited when that ended up in the script.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you'll notice a lot of bald Y guys in Thailand. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The locals call them LBHs.

Speaker 1 Losers back home.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 In number two, well, probably foul play. And then in this one, now you know there's gunfire, there's like intentional violence coming.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 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,

Speaker 3 is this plot-wise going to be more complicated? Like, what's, where is this headed?

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And, you know, 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.

Speaker 4 It was always kind of these really specific characters kind of interacting with each other and examining more existential ideas.

Speaker 4 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,

Speaker 4 I remember we got this note about at the end of the pilot returning to the dead body to remind people that there's a dead body.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 They're going to forget that the dead body exists. That's not really the focus of the show.
And obviously,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And I think he kind of wanted to challenge us to kind of go bigger.

Speaker 1 Getting a vision through a nebulizer after

Speaker 1 Brock, it sounds like a plot on White Lotus, you know?

Speaker 4 I know.

Speaker 1 Dave, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

Speaker 4 No, of course. Thank you so much for having me.
And thank you guys for doing this. It has been fun.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it has been so fun

Speaker 1 thanks to our guests michelle monahan and david burnad and to all of you guys listening see you next time

Speaker 1 the white lotus podcast is a production of hbo and campside media this episode was hosted by gia tolentino and josh baerman natalia winkelman is the managing producer our associate producers are allison haney anthony pachillo and Aaliyah Papes.

Speaker 1 At Campside Media are executive producers Josh Dean. Sound design and mix by Bart Warshaw at Cocoon Audio.

Speaker 1 For the HBO podcast team, our executive producers Michael Gluckstadt, senior producer Allison Cohen-Sorokach, and producer Kenya Reyes.