Episode 5: Tanya with Jennifer Coolidge

Speaker 1 Experience a membership that backs what you're building with American Express Business Platinum.

Speaker 1 Unlock over $3,500 in business and travel value annually with statement credits on select purchases from brands like Dell, Hilton, and Adobe, and other benefits. American Express Business Platinum.

Speaker 1 There's nothing like it. Based on total potential value of statement credits on select purchases and other benefits, enrollments required, monthly, and other limits and terms apply.

Speaker 1 Learn more at AmericanExpress.com/slash business dash platinum.

Speaker 2 This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this.
Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't.

Speaker 2 From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids' lives. But are we investing in their future financial success?

Speaker 2 With Greenlight, you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving, and investing. And this investment costs less than that after-school treat.

Speaker 2 Start prioritizing their financial education and future today with a risk-free trial at greenlight.com/slash Spotify. Greenlight.com/slash Spotify.

Speaker 3 What was the thing that made you want to dedicate your whole life to activism? Was it one incident that was especially brutal?

Speaker 4 I don't understand. What do you mean, activism?

Speaker 3 Black Lives Matter.

Speaker 4 Black Lives Matter?

Speaker 5 I'm not involved in that. Oh, you're not? Oh,

Speaker 5 no.

Speaker 3 Because you, yeah, you said BLM.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's the Bureau of Land Management.

Speaker 4 I have like 300 rangers across 10 states that report to me.

Speaker 5 Wow,

Speaker 3 I guess I got that really wrong.

Speaker 3 God, I mean,

Speaker 3 now that makes sense. Yeah,

Speaker 5 I want more.

Speaker 6 Hello.

Speaker 7 I'm Evan Ross Katz, and welcome back to the White Lotus official podcast, specifically to the episode that we've all been waiting for. Okay, maybe not all of us, but definitely me.

Speaker 7 That's because today we're talking Jennifer Coolidge and Tanya.

Speaker 5 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 This is such a beautiful view.

Speaker 3 I wonder if anyone's ever jumped from here.

Speaker 7 As I mentioned in our first episode, Jennifer Coolidge and I initially met via Instagram, but we really became friends some months later after we hung out and hit it off.

Speaker 7 Or rather, that's how I would describe it. She might say, like, I just wouldn't leave her alone.
People always ask me what Jen is like as a person. Is she similar to Tanya? Is she different from her?

Speaker 7 And I often have a hard time explaining her je ne sait qui. The best that I can do is that I'm never more alive than when I'm with her, truly.

Speaker 7 A mutual friend of ours once said to me that getting to be around Jen is like when you randomly encounter a butterfly.

Speaker 7 It's special and magical, and then the butterfly has to fly away to do butterfly things. That's Jen.
And it's not just me that thinks this.

Speaker 7 Those fortunate enough to occupy her circle can all see the special glow she emits. Everyone who meets Jen has an instantly iconic Coolidge story.
Just take it from Lucas Gage.

Speaker 10 Has Coolidge ever told you about the wine story?

Speaker 10 I buy a bottle of wine. I'm sloppy.
I'm an idiot. And I knock and crash the whole entire wine over.
I break it. It explodes on the four seasons white couch and rug.

Speaker 11 Just shatters everywhere.

Speaker 10 I mean, it ruins all the furniture.

Speaker 12 I freak out.

Speaker 5 I feel horrible. They,

Speaker 10 they come out with like a bill, like an astronomical amount. I mean, maybe it was probably the right amount for the damage I had done.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 I like turn away to clean myself up and I just see Coolidge in the corner of my eye taking care of it. And she just like put a hand in my back.

Speaker 4 She's like, I got it.

Speaker 10 I got it covered. So I don't know in my head if she, and I didn't, I feel like I've tried to press and ask her.
I'm like, you can't pay.

Speaker 10 She's like, I'm not just, I don't know if she took it under her wing and like took care of the bill or took care of the mess or just got the staff to not want to kill me and kick me out right then and there.

Speaker 10 She's just, I'm obsessed with her.

Speaker 7 But listen, Jennifer Coolidge isn't just an incredible person to be around. She's also a wildly talented performer.

Speaker 7 On the screen, she's been a scene stealer since her breakout guest appearance on Seinfeld in 1993.

Speaker 7 After that came a string of unforgettable roles in films like American Pie, Best in Show, Legally Blonde, and a Cinderella story.

Speaker 7 And yet, for much of her career, Coolidge was often relegated to side characters.

Speaker 7 You know, the one who comes in, steals the show, and is gone by the time you can wipe the tears of laughter from your eyes.

Speaker 7 For gay men like myself, there's always been a certain Judy Garland-esque appeal to Coolidge, and a sixth sense that she was capable of far more than what she'd been given.

Speaker 7 I discussed that appeal with Dan Savage, the sex and relationships advice columnist you heard from last episode.

Speaker 13 Jennifer Coolidge, it's interesting. Her, I don't want to call it shtick, like she's really a star, and a star plays themselves in film after film after film.

Speaker 13 Betty Davis was always Betty Davis, right? There were just different personifications of Betty Davis, different people that that spirit of Betty Davis inhabited.

Speaker 13 And that's who Jennifer Coolidge is, right? She's a big star.

Speaker 13 There is something about her style, her performance style, her appetites that just comes across as kind of gay, chaotic that we can identify with, right? She's a little

Speaker 13 not messy in a bad way, just hard to contain herself, right? And she spills out at the edges.

Speaker 13 And sometimes her characters are, you know, like Stiffler's mom, we're self-medicating with alcohol a little bit. Like there's greater degrees of substance abuse in the gay community for a reason.

Speaker 13 And often that reason is about disinhibition and needing to disinhibit.

Speaker 13 And Jennifer Coolidge's whole style is a kind of, I'm not saying she's like playing a gay man or sending up gay men, but like we recognize ourselves in her and how she moves through the world.

Speaker 13 You know, in part, she's...

Speaker 13 She's beautiful. Like Stiffler's mom was the original MILF.
All the boys in American Bible wanted to fuck Stiffler's mom.

Speaker 13 But she's big in a way that women aren't allowed to be big in the same way that gay men, bi-men are

Speaker 13 same-sex attracted in a way, and big in a way that we're not supposed to be big. We're often, gay people grow up.
sort of policing our behaviors and actions to rid ourselves of tells.

Speaker 13 It's why so many people will write to me when their gay friends come out and say, oh, my friend came out as gay and now he walks different, sounds different. Why is he acting gay?

Speaker 13 And it's like, no, no, no, he's acting straight before.

Speaker 13 He's no longer policing himself.

Speaker 13 And that's what I always got from watching Jennifer Coolidge and anything was there was something about the way she didn't police herself as a person, as a performer, as a figure in pop culture that I recognized as kind of what gay men do when they come out: stop policing themselves, be big, and messy and chaotic and hungry, and have appetites and

Speaker 13 take up space. And that's what Coolidge does.

Speaker 12 We met Jennifer in 2007. We did a movie called Gentleman Broncos.

Speaker 7 This is David Bernad, the producer of The White Lotus. I talked to him about his and Mike's friendship with Jen.

Speaker 12 Jennifer is someone that is one of our best friends in and outside of TV and film business. And,

Speaker 12 you know, she's someone that we spent a lot of time with, traveled all over with, spent a lot of time with her in New Orleans, always talking about like, let's do something together.

Speaker 12 Mike had always talked about wanting to do a haunted house movie with Jennifer, which would be brilliant. And I think, you know, Mike was just very inspired by her.

Speaker 12 Jennifer is an incredible human being and the best of friends and

Speaker 12 just someone you want to work with and spend time with.

Speaker 7 Before The White Lotus, Mike pitched around a series called The Tears of St. Patsy, which was set to star Jennifer.

Speaker 7 Hollywood passed on the opportunity, unwisely, I might say, but it did leave things open for Mike to bring Jen into the fold on his pandemic show, The White Lotus.

Speaker 7 Enter Tanya McQuad, the deeply troubled, emotionally fragile, needy, and self-absorbed heiress of the White Lotus.

Speaker 7 This was the role of a lifetime for Jen, and one that in many senses felt predestined. Here, finally, was the moment she could step into the spotlight that had long been waiting for her.

Speaker 7 You got this.

Speaker 7 One person who got to know Jennifer and Tanya very well was John Grice.

Speaker 14 Tanya is oblivious to what's happening around her. She's incapable of reading the room.
Whereas Coolidge, on the other hand, is probably a genius when it comes to that.

Speaker 7 On The White Lotus, John played Greg, a buttoned-up government professional who meets Tanya in season one and ends up married to her.

Speaker 3 You know, we should probably get the talking in now because there's going to be a very loud luau show.

Speaker 5 Oh, okay.

Speaker 4 Well, let's get talking.

Speaker 7 During season one, I remember a big question rattling around with viewers was, does Greg actually like Tanya? I posed that question to John himself.

Speaker 7 I've been wondering, what was your interpretation of that in season one?

Speaker 8 I think...

Speaker 14 I do think he did. I think because I found myself just enamored with Jennifer in and of itself, and I think that just augmented whatever I was feeling.

Speaker 14 And when I was reading it and I was very abstract with it, I thought, ah, you know, maybe he's just wants to get some nookie and, you know, and just like vacation fun or whatever.

Speaker 14 But I thought, I thought that, I mean, I think one of the corners that I sensed Greg turning for better or for worse in his life because he was dealing with his mortality was his empathy.

Speaker 9 And I felt like he felt bad for her.

Speaker 14 He felt at times he really felt her pain, but just tried to kind of keep everything light with her.

Speaker 7 Tanya spends a lot of season one latched on to Belinda, the resort spa employee played by Natasha Rothwell.

Speaker 7 Ultimately, she manipulates her, taking a long time to consider funding Belinda's own spa before reneging on the offer. Here's Natasha Rothwell.

Speaker 6 I think that when

Speaker 15 Tanya makes the offer to to Belinda, she is genuine and she really is inspired in that moment to be one of the good ones.

Speaker 15 And I think that Belinda was very vulnerable in sharing her hopes and dreams with a client of the white lotus.

Speaker 15 While I know audiences were so angry and frustrated with her, I think that both Belinda's expectations were probably a little bit too high. And I think also that

Speaker 15 Tanya was blinded by trying to find a solve for her pain.

Speaker 15 What Jennifer does brilliantly is she plays the empathy first.

Speaker 15 And obviously she's such a comedic genius, but I think that the reason why we root for her, even though she's doing all of these terrible things, is that we see the pain that birthed the action.

Speaker 15 Do you know what I mean? We see the catalyst for how she moves and

Speaker 15 her feeling that like relationships are transactional and no one wants her for her.

Speaker 15 They just want her for her money and her trying to constantly kick the tires on every relationship that she has to, you know, trust that it's authentic.

Speaker 15 And once you've been burned, how do you love again? Once you've been burned, how do you like open yourself up again? And she's running from something, you know, so all of those wounds are so visible.

Speaker 15 And I think it makes it hard for people to write her off completely because she's so nuanced in how she moves through the world.

Speaker 5 And I think that

Speaker 15 Belinda saw her wounds and addressed her wounds and healed some of those wounds. And so

Speaker 15 immediately Tanya turns the relationship transactional. I'll do something for you because she's not just used to receiving.

Speaker 13 She's blind. She has blind spots.

Speaker 7 Dan Savage again.

Speaker 13 She is unintentionally, non-maliciously cruel and hurtful.

Speaker 13 And for that, she gets a pass, right? Yeah. Because we all have blind spots and we all move through the world sometimes oblivious to the damage we leave in our wake.

Speaker 13 And one of the points I think White makes in season one is that the more wealth and power and privilege you have, the more oblivious you can be to people as you move through the world, shoving your money around.

Speaker 7 For those of you gunning to hear from the woman herself, I did get the chance to talk all things Tanya with Jennifer Coolidge after she had a little trouble finding the studio.

Speaker 8 I mean, am I really going to turn into that kind of old fart where I can't find the...

Speaker 8 I went past this building so many times.

Speaker 7 I don't think it's an old thing. I think it's just a you thing, but I think it's a quirk.

Speaker 7 Jennifer told me that she was gratified that viewers gave Tanya a pass despite Tanya's, how shall we say, chronic obliviousness?

Speaker 8 I think it was sort of cool that even though she was completely obsessed with herself and all of that, I think somehow the audience forgave Tanya because she was suffering so much.

Speaker 8 Tanya was kind of a weirdo, but somehow, you know, people forgave her for a lot.

Speaker 6 They really did. You know?

Speaker 8 They did. I know we're not supposed to, I know you have that famous saying, you're not supposed to

Speaker 8 say anything negative about the character you create. I remember my acting teacher saying that.

Speaker 8 But I just did and

Speaker 8 I think she passed away. So

Speaker 6 I'm not hurting her feelings.

Speaker 8 But I don't know. Yeah.
I mean, I just thought, you know, I create this weird thing that sort of someone who's a little bit more repulsive than attractive, probably.

Speaker 8 But I just like that people sort of went with it anyway.

Speaker 8 It's just being rich can really prevent you from getting well faster with all the distractions.

Speaker 8 You know, if you're really wealthy, you can distract yourself and distract others from ever finding out who you are just because it's

Speaker 8 so easy to do.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 8 It's almost like if you have nothing, you almost have a better chance.

Speaker 7 Looking back over Tanya's most iconic moments, there's one thing that stands out. Tanya spends some memorable time on boats.
And one thing I know about Jennifer, she gets very, very seasick.

Speaker 3 I brought my mother's ashes with me so I could spread them in the ocean. And I just realized yesterday, I'm going to need a boat.

Speaker 8 Coughing up my insides was cathartic because the entire cast got to see me throw up over and over again. And it got very intimate.
It's sort of like...

Speaker 8 It's almost like I gave birth in front of everybody.

Speaker 8 You know, I gave birth to a baby in front of the whole cast. It was so vulnerable.
It was such a vulnerable,

Speaker 8 you know, because it looks like the boat was bigger than what it was. It was a teeny little boat.
So everyone is like six inches from each other.

Speaker 8 Out in the middle of the ocean in Maui with the whales, there were whales that came, were jumping out of the water. And so it was kind of incredible.
So there was this, you know, being deathly ill.

Speaker 8 But I mean, I just remember, it was very intimate. That's the most intimate I've felt with a group.

Speaker 8 You can't get off the boat and you have to be this close to a girl throwing up over and over again and everything. So there was something I'll never forget.

Speaker 8 It was sort of almost like initiation to a club that I'll never forget. You know, I'll always be part of that club.

Speaker 7 One of these boat scenes occurs in season one on a sunset cruise. Shane and Rachel, the honeymoon couple, are trying to have a romantic dinner.

Speaker 7 Tanya, on the other hand, is there in full funeral attire to scatter her mother's ashes.

Speaker 3 These are my mother's ashes, and I don't want tonight to be a downer.

Speaker 2 So let's have fun, okay?

Speaker 8 I was excited to play, of course, you know, someone who lost their mother.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I lost my mother early and just never recovered. And Mike knows that, and he wrote that.
He's also a genius because it's a very sad moment for my character, but when I read it,

Speaker 8 I was so excited about destroying Shane. I didn't even know the magic of Jake Lacey before we shot it, but his ability to play

Speaker 8 someone who can't handle an uncomfortable moment is so comedic. I mean, we know that guy so well.

Speaker 8 When something starts to go wrong, there's nothing funnier when that kind of guy is forced to be on a boat with like a really crazy person.

Speaker 6 And so I have to say,

Speaker 8 I thought about the comedic part of it way more than the sad part.

Speaker 7 The very first viral Tanya line actually occurs in that scene. Her memorable Wehee moment.

Speaker 7 Weehee!

Speaker 3 You're a beautiful couple.

Speaker 6 I asked her about that line.

Speaker 8 I have no idea what that came from.

Speaker 7 But was it in the script?

Speaker 13 No, I don't think so.

Speaker 8 No, I think it was just,

Speaker 8 I don't know, I was trying to think of something that would repulse Shane.

Speaker 8 I mean, you know, that was something I was trying to think of, like, I mean, in other words, the actress, me, you know, not, not the character, I was thinking of just like, what can I do to like gross out Shane?

Speaker 8 You know, like, in other words, the opposite of sexy. I just wouldn't, you know, he's, he doesn't like anything the opposite of sexy.
And so to just do something like,

Speaker 8 you know, I don't know, it's not attractive and

Speaker 8 seductive. And I just thought, like,

Speaker 8 There's nothing worse than someone coming on to you with some strange voice or something. And it just, it all like,

Speaker 8 you know, makes, you know, a man really just want to retract everything.

Speaker 7 Tanya ends season one with Greg, leaving Belinda and her business dreams behind.

Speaker 1 How did it go with your guy?

Speaker 5 Good.

Speaker 5 Good, yeah. Yeah, really?

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Actually, we're going to go to Honolulu tomorrow, yeah, and spend the weekend together.

Speaker 7 She returns in season two with Greg, now her husband, excited to embark on a Sicilian adventure straight out of a Michelangelo Antonione movie.

Speaker 7 For Jennifer, it was an intense experience, which made it all the easier to get into character.

Speaker 8 When it's not a sound stage and you're just actually filming in all these dramatic places and I mean, there's something about so much of the work is done for you.

Speaker 8 You can, it's just so much easier to believe

Speaker 6 the

Speaker 8 story that you're in. Because it's, you know, there's just no, there's nothing around you is false.
It's all like, I mean, look, yeah, we were in the hotel.

Speaker 8 I mean, the guys weren't trying to murder me at all moments or whatever, but we shot in these places that were so authentic and ancient that I swear to God, I, I don't know, the backdrops, everything was real.

Speaker 8 Like these, we really were standing on cliffs and in these boats. And like those, the evil gaze really did look evil on the boat.

Speaker 8 And And it was so easy when I was on that boat in the middle of the ocean trying to think of like, how will I get off it? It's like, it's so weird. It's just,

Speaker 8 yeah you're not acting it's like being in a movie where you know with a bunch of snakes and you're just and so they come in and they dump all these rubber snakes on you and you have to be scared whatever it's like i felt like white lotus 2

Speaker 8 was like the snakes were real everything was real you know everything was kind of frightening yeah what about the bike were you on the motorcycle Yeah, we were.

Speaker 6 Wow. Yeah.
That's adventurous. Yeah.

Speaker 6 They could have gone.

Speaker 8 Yeah, we could have gone off the cliff.

Speaker 6 You know, I love that

Speaker 7 When Tanya returns for season two in Sicily she has a new character in tow her beleaguered Gen Z assistant Portia played by Haley Lou Richardson

Speaker 7 Haley Lou told me that in her scenes with Jennifer Jennifer, there were many, many times when Jennifer would go off on a hilarious improv tangent.

Speaker 7 And in those moments, Haley didn't even attempt to get on Jen's level.

Speaker 16 Because

Speaker 16 I don't think that Tanya and Jennifer is someone that can or should be matched. Like, I mean, it obviously wasn't the dynamic where there's two big crazy characters, you know?

Speaker 16 So, like, I never felt like a pressure to

Speaker 16 match that or even fully go along with it because Portia

Speaker 16 is just like really trying to get through it.

Speaker 16 So

Speaker 16 I think I just like as Portia, I guess just watched and

Speaker 16 tried to process that this was like a normal thing that was all going to be okay.

Speaker 16 But me as Haley, there was so many times where she would really go off and it was like over my shoulder and I really just had to not laugh. Like that was really my only goal.

Speaker 16 Like, and just stay kind of as present as I could in case she asked me something, but that rarely happened. Like most of the time, she truly just went off in her own world.

Speaker 16 And I just got to watch her do whatever she wanted, which was really

Speaker 6 cool.

Speaker 17 Goldbond knows that every glow up starts with radiant skin. So choose Goldbond Cocoa Butter Glow for a body lotion that's clinically shown to give you smooth, glowing skin.

Speaker 17 But don't just take our word for it. 88% of people who tried Gold Bond Cocoa Butter Glow saw glowing skin in just one day.
Goldbond Cocoa Butter Glow. Nourish your skin.
Reveal your glow.

Speaker 17 Buy now on Amazon.

Speaker 1 Chronic spontaneous urticaria or chronic hives with no known cause. It's so unpredictable.

Speaker 5 It's like playing pinball.

Speaker 1 Itchy red bumps start on my arm, then my back,

Speaker 1 sometimes my legs. Hives come out of nowhere

Speaker 1 and it comes and goes. But I just found out about a treatment option at treatmyhives.com.
Take that, chronic hives. Learn more at treatmyhives.com.

Speaker 11 At blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments. It's about you, your style, your space, your way.

Speaker 11 Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right.

Speaker 11 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 11 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 5 Rules and restrictions apply.

Speaker 16 The one moment I'll never forget, and I was really shocked that it wasn't in the show, was

Speaker 6 we were at breakfast. And she was like, do you think Greg is cheating on me?

Speaker 16 And then she like was supposed to say like one other sentence. And then she just went off on this giant like hysteric tangent, like screaming at everyone at the breakfast balcony, do you?

Speaker 6 Do you?

Speaker 16 And I was just sitting there like, that was the morning I peed my pants a little bit. And then the whole rest of the show, me and Mike would just be like, do you, do you, to each other.

Speaker 7 As season two unfolds, Mike White drops many hints that this time around, Tanya is going to be the one who ends up dead.

Speaker 7 Maybe the most obvious signposting are the many allusions to Madame Butterfly, the famous Puccini opera about a woman who kills herself after her husband leaves her for another woman.

Speaker 4 Poor Madame Butterfly.

Speaker 5 Sepuklo.

Speaker 5 I can relate.

Speaker 7 In a late episode, Quentin, played by Tom Hollander, takes Tanya to see Madame Butterfly on stage in Palermo, and Tanya is moved to tears.

Speaker 7 Only later does Tanya find out that Quentin isn't her friend, friend and that he's actually plotting to kill her for her fortune. I hate when that happens.

Speaker 5 Oh my god.

Speaker 3 Portia, meet me and Taramina. We gotta get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 7 Now, we'll get to that chaotic confrontation with the evil gaze in just a moment.

Speaker 7 But first, I have to rewind to when Mike was wrapping up the first season and was busy figuring out his next moves with HBO.

Speaker 8 So my pitch to them was Jennifer's death.

Speaker 9 Like Jennifer dying at the end of the season.

Speaker 9 I was like, We'll bring back Jennifer, and like, you know, you know, like, and then I kind of pitched the whole, like, the gays are trying to murder me, like, storyline,

Speaker 9 and

Speaker 7 they really liked it.

Speaker 9 So, it was kind of built into the second season. And at the time, when like I told her she was gonna die, I was like, this would probably be it.

Speaker 9 Like, I really wasn't thinking beyond what we were doing there, I just thought it would be a great kind of two, but you know, like in the back of my mind, obviously, I liked the concept of continuing to travel.

Speaker 8 travel i thought it was an elastic idea that could continue to maybe

Speaker 9 be fruitful or something to inspire me so

Speaker 9 it was only really

Speaker 9 when the show was airing and all these people were interviewing jennifer about it being over

Speaker 9 and her being kind of like very um

Speaker 9 yeah there was a lot of pathos in some of those interviews.

Speaker 6 And I was like, this is, this is sad.

Speaker 9 I love working with Jennifer and I, it was certainly not like any desire to get rid of. I loved that what we did with Tanya's character.

Speaker 9 It pains me to feel like I, I don't know, I, I, I, I, I blew that, but you know, we will work together again. And who knows, who knows how this will all play out?

Speaker 7 You didn't blow anything.

Speaker 9 I don't mean to, to no, no, but I do feel like it's like, there was, you know, it's like, if, if, like, if they'd given me a six season order instead of a, yeah,

Speaker 9 a one more, we'll see. And, you know, know, I probably would have, I don't planned it differently, but that's, that's how it played out.

Speaker 3 I may be paranoid, but I need you to drive me in the boat. Drive the boat to the shore.
Please, these gays, they're trying to murder me.

Speaker 7 Now, look, the minute I saw the Tanya death episode, I knew. Instant classic.
Who else but Mike White could write a line like these gays, they're trying to murder me and have us cheer her on?

Speaker 7 Jen recalls that Mike was excited about how the sequence turned out too.

Speaker 8 He called them the evil gays and he said, I'm very excited about this. And he goes, you know, this group of men, they're not your friends.

Speaker 6 They

Speaker 8 are out to destroy you. And I was sort of fascinated and I was like,

Speaker 6 really?

Speaker 8 They're bad? They're really bad? And Mike goes,

Speaker 8 Yes, Jennifer, because let me tell you something. Gay men don't always want to be the best friend.

Speaker 8 I don't, you know, gay men don't always want to be the pal and the person that, you know, puts the family back together.

Speaker 8 Do you know how badly gay men want to play evil people?

Speaker 8 This is going to be really fun for them. And this is something people want to see.

Speaker 8 And he was so adamant about it. And then...

Speaker 8 You know, when we were like filming it and, you know, everyone had been cast and we were doing some scenes from it, I just remember thinking, having this revelation going like, oh my God,

Speaker 8 Mike White is so tuned in it was unexpected and people really liked this you know clever bunch of evil gays

Speaker 7 dan savage touched on the trope of the evil gays as well certainly brought back the gay villain right

Speaker 13 which

Speaker 13 you know season one you had the gay victim in a way that it ended up being Armand who was in the coffin being loaded into the plane was a shock.

Speaker 13 And in this season, there are more dead gay people at the end, but they had it coming.

Speaker 13 They were out, and it's ironic because the gay people who die at the end of season two were the gay people who were coming for the gay fan favorite from season one and season two, Tanya.

Speaker 13 And so we were happy to see them die, which was a real trick of Mike White's on his gay audience. That we were, when she was shooting gay men dead, we were like, fuck yeah, go, Tanya.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 We never loved her more than when she was coming after our own.

Speaker 13 Yeah. When she was shooting the gay bad guys.

Speaker 13 And like, one of the things I think that is so exhilarating about both seasons is that there is a sense sometimes when you're a gay person and you watch the representations of gay men by people in queer community in film and on television that we're not all good and we're complicated and some of us are awful and some of us are evil.

Speaker 13 And yet, it's almost as if because TV and film only showed us gay villains for the first 70, 80 years, that once they began to make it up to us for that, they stopped showing us any gay villains at all, which is tedious.

Speaker 13 I'm sorry, it's just tedious and boring and not who we know we are, which is complicated and morally ambiguous.

Speaker 7 Now, of course, movie and TV scenes are often shot out of order to make things easier on the production end, which means that the last scene Jennifer ever shot for the White Lotus wasn't actually her death scene, but a dinner scene between Tanya and Greg.

Speaker 7 I asked John Grice about the days leading up to that final shot.

Speaker 14 We would rehearse, we'd meet in her room and we'd rehearse. And it was one of those things, it's so bittersweet because I'm thinking, oh my God, like...

Speaker 14 This is really going to happen.

Speaker 14 And at the same time, she's like going,

Speaker 13 you're being so so cold to me.

Speaker 14 And this scene, like, this is how we're talking to each other. I'm like, I'm sorry, but that's the way it's written, you know? And so,

Speaker 14 but she's like, but I know, she goes, I kind of like it. I like that, I like it when you're like really kind of just standoffish.
It really makes me angry.

Speaker 14 I like that, you know, so like we're actually talking about reaching for the darker side of it, you know, rather than

Speaker 14 lament about what's, you know, now over.

Speaker 3 I've had every kind of treatment over the years.

Speaker 3 Death

Speaker 3 is the last immersive experience I haven't tried.

Speaker 7 Did you two commiserate at all about episode seven?

Speaker 14 I think that it was the subject that we just didn't talk about.

Speaker 7 I get that impression from so many of the people that we've spoken to.

Speaker 14 It's too hard to just kind of, you know, la-di-da, you know, we're just going to blah, blah, blah, you know,

Speaker 14 no, it was too hard to talk about, you know. I mean, if ever it came up when we would be out to dinner or hanging out or rehearsing, I would say,

Speaker 14 it can't be the end. I'm just sorry, but it's like, it can't be over.
There's got, you know, like maybe season three opens up and you just see a trail of water walking to the room, you know, like

Speaker 14 that's how my mind was working.

Speaker 7 Do you remember the final or what happened after the final cut?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, Mike White walked into the room and he was like, guys,

Speaker 14 you know, threw up his hands and

Speaker 14 Jennifer was like, yeah,

Speaker 6 wow,

Speaker 6 okay,

Speaker 6 all right.

Speaker 14 Like, you know, just like, wow,

Speaker 14 this moment has arrived. And I was almost in tears.
I mean, I just was keeping myself together, you know, keeping my shit together. I just didn't want to let it go.

Speaker 4 Death doesn't have to spoil everything, right?

Speaker 5 Enjoy your life until it dropped the curtain.

Speaker 7 When I sat down with Jen for this podcast, we both knew it was going to be one of the last times she'd be interviewed at length about her White Lotus experience.

Speaker 7 So I started off by asking, How is she feeling about it all?

Speaker 7 What is your relationship like to this show with all of this time to reflect on the experience? Do you like the prospect of revisiting these two seasons? Is this a fun conversation?

Speaker 7 Is this a difficult one?

Speaker 8 Yeah, it is. The one thing I sort of feel like

Speaker 8 I haven't really

Speaker 8 told the truth about is, you know, I've been interviewed a lot about, are you sad that you're, you know, how do you feel about not being in White Lotus 3?

Speaker 8 And I sort of felt like I automatically said you know i'm devastated or whatever and but i don't know if i'm i don't know if i'm that devastated because i do think it's it's really exciting if you've never done white lotus to get a part in mike's show and i am really excited for like this next cast i mean it is you know i'm sure there's some jealousy down in there like oh i wanted to go you know i want to be part of that whole thing and go with that fun group of people and be in thailand with that fun group of people.

Speaker 8 But, I mean, Mike White gave me such a generous gift and I got to be in two of his seasons in White Letters. So I have to say, like, I don't know if I'm really spending my time crying over spilt milk.

Speaker 8 I'm looking at other jobs, though, that bring that sort of the Mike White satisfaction when you're like, he gives you a lot. to do and play and you can't help but have a good time on a job with him.

Speaker 8 I mean, he's tough too. He's really tough.
And he's, you know, he knows what he wants,

Speaker 8 but he really likes actors and

Speaker 8 he is a really fun person to hang out with. And like I say, I have to say,

Speaker 8 I don't talk about my joy enough from the joy I got from those two years.

Speaker 7 In your defense, I feel like so often at the tail end of that press cycle, it was you being relentlessly asked the same question about, are you sad about Tanya's death?

Speaker 7 Are you sad you're not going to be continuing on? So I felt like you were pigeonholed in terms of not being asked about the joy of being on these two seasons and celebrating that.

Speaker 7 It became very, well, are you sad not to be back? Which sort of put you in a corner in terms of how you were able to look at it as a whole.

Speaker 8 Did you feel that way? Yeah, I know it. Well, that's very nice.
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 8 They do ask the same questions over and over, but sometimes your feelings change about them or you're saying, you just keep saying something.

Speaker 8 You're like, I don't know if I really feel that way today, you know?

Speaker 8 i don't know there was a moment i sort of thought maybe i could have talked him out of it but it didn't really go with the big you know italian opera you know it got so dramatic and

Speaker 8 look the story turned into this fascinating but very sort of scary unpredictable dream and i don't know that if mike had sort of written a scene where I sort of all of a sudden everyone's on the beach and they see this like flotation device coming up to the shore and I'm I'm you know my head is sticking out of it and I'm like hey guys

Speaker 8 I mean I don't know I don't think anyone would uh

Speaker 8 you know maybe it's just good to be killed off sometimes and and uh you know before people really hate your guts True, you know, true.

Speaker 7 I'm wondering, there's just a level of vulnerability that was required to play this part.

Speaker 7 And it's a side of you I'd never seen in any of your previous performances and I'm wondering what it was like for you to have to go to these places with this character do you feel like you'd ever been asked to go to this these places before in roles you'd played

Speaker 9 no

Speaker 8 no but you have to realize like

Speaker 8 you know I don't know if someone would watch Pooty Tang and go like

Speaker 8 hey I got a role for you

Speaker 6 I forgot about Pootie Tang.

Speaker 8 But you know what I mean? Like in other words,

Speaker 8 a lot of the time you get cast and things is people see a glimmer of something that you've that you've done or whatever, and then you might have to recreate it on a bigger scale. You know what I mean?

Speaker 8 But I hadn't done any like anything, any mind-blowing work where people were like, oh, you know, you could really go on some emotional, take people on an emotional ride or anything.

Speaker 8 And I don't even know if I fully achieved it. All I know is that I got this cool part from Mike White,

Speaker 8 and it was way more than I have ever been asked to play. It was a gift, a giant gift.
The greatest thing about White Lotus is it was all a surprise. I didn't, I could never have predicted this moment.

Speaker 8 I'm still in disbelief that it ever happened. I've always said to people that you do have to have an unrealistic view of how much you can achieve in this lifetime.
I really believe that.

Speaker 8 I think it has to be. not realistic.

Speaker 8 And I think there's a side of me that's not realistic in any way. And my dreams are very big.

Speaker 8 But that any of this would have happened is just beyond.

Speaker 8 I never would have predicted any of this ever.

Speaker 8 And so it doesn't have to happen again because

Speaker 8 I don't know if we could ever surpass this moment of gratitude.

Speaker 8 It's just this.

Speaker 8 Thrill to be part of something that people really liked.

Speaker 7 I imagine that this is is one of the last times that you're going to sit down for this extended amount of time and talk about this experience.

Speaker 7 And so I'm wondering what that feels like in a sense to put this chapter to bed. How does that sit with you?

Speaker 8 I don't know. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of

Speaker 6 worrying about that a little bit.

Speaker 6 I'm wondering if I feel this.

Speaker 7 I'm worrying, she says, while she starts laughing, why are you worrying?

Speaker 8 Well, you know, I'm just wondering, It was like, you know, we don't ever want to peak in this lifetime. I'm not talking about peak, like, I'm talking about just

Speaker 8 having a really fun experience with people that I really,

Speaker 8 really like.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 yeah, will I continue to mourn? You know,

Speaker 8 I don't know. I, you know,

Speaker 8 hopefully,

Speaker 8 you know, I'll mature

Speaker 8 and find

Speaker 8 the next thing.

Speaker 8 but ask me if i was gonna you know mike was gonna do another season somehow he was able to incorporate me uh

Speaker 8 just ask me that question

Speaker 7 if mike were to do another season and figure out a way to somehow incorporate tanya is that your desire

Speaker 8 yes

Speaker 6 Yeah, no, that would be fun. Yeah, of course I probably would.
Yeah, of course I probably would.

Speaker 7 Next time on the White Lotus podcast, we'll be taking a deep dive into the show's unforgettable theme song.

Speaker 12 You know, at that point, you're like, we don't know what the opening titles are. We don't know if it's going to be a song.
We don't know what it is.

Speaker 18 When it wasn't there, when we were trying to kind of accept this sound, it really wasn't an obvious choice. It was kind of a leap of faith.

Speaker 7 The White Lotus Podcast is a production of HBO and Campside Media. This episode was hosted by me, Evan Ross Katz, and produced by Natalia Winkleman.
Our associate producer is Aaliyah Papes.

Speaker 7 Fact-checking by Gray Lanta. At Campside Media, our executive producer is Josh Dean.
Sound design and mix by Bart Warshaw at Cocoon Audio.

Speaker 7 Special thanks to Michael Gluckstadt, Allison Cohen-Sorokach, and Kenya Reyes from the HBO podcast team. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next time.