Writer / Director Mike White. Courtesy of HBO.
Never accuse Mike White of holding you back.
The modest and unpretentious queer author of comedy films including Chuck & Buck (in which he also starred), Orange County, The One and Only Ivan and School of Rock loves to skewer American culture and characters with biting taste. His latest effort, the HBO series The White Lotus which he also directed, finds White elevating his sour humor to a new level of penetration.
The White Lotus follows a group of wealthy American tourists on a dream vacation to a luxury resort in Hawaii overseen by flamboyant manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) and ambitious spa hostess Belinda (Natasha Rothwell). Once there, the tourists start to break down: newlyweds Shane and Rachel (Jake Lacy and Alexandra Daddario) question their relationship; Tanya (national treasure Jennifer Coolidge) catches Belinda’s attention with money; Mark (Steve Zahn) questions his masculinity while his wife CFO Nicole (Connie Britton) is obsessed with work. Meanwhile, their daughter Olivia (Sydney Sweeney) and her best friend Paula (Brittany O’Grady) plot to destroy each other, while leaving Olivia’s brother Quinn (Fred Hechinger) to sleep on the beach.
How quickly a dream becomes a nightmare …
The White Lotus has won rave reviews for White and his cast, including a sex scene between Bartlett and Lukas Gage that has to be seen to be believed. We caught up with White for a rare interview to discuss his inspirations, his philosophical statements about Americans, and his peculiar humor ahead of The White Lotus’ finale. The show’s final episode airs August 15 on HBO.
So it’s a story that takes place in an apparent paradise, although it is about characters in misery. Is this your view of hell?
I mean, if the hell is nice, the linens and room service isn’t too bad.
[Laughter]
Sometimes I feel like when I’m on vacation to “get away from it all,” a whole new set of existential problems can arise. You start to be like It’s the end of the world. Am I happy with these people? Holidays, sometimes, you want to get away from it all, but the music comes into play and it becomes tropical anxiety.
Natasha Rothwell & Jennifer Coolidge
I like this. And, the tropical weather and the high-thread count linens – if you can’t enjoy it, it’s a bit hellish.
Absoutely.
I couldn’t stop thinking about The bonfire of vanities as I watched. The characters in this book are terrible Human being. The characters in this series are horrible people – spoiled, egotistical, oblivious. Do you see them all as horrific, or is there a sliding scale on that?
Well, I think there is a sliding scale; some are more horrible than others. I actually think it’s been interesting to read people’s take on the show and how horrible the characters are. I start to think My God, I wonder if they’ve met the people I meet at the Country Mart? There are way people worse than the characters in this series.
Related: Twitter Had Some Thoughts On HBO’s ‘White Lotus’ Rim Scene
Fair enough.
It’s also… I feel like some parts of these characters are me. I had times when I couldn’t get into my room, where it was supposed to be ready at two o’clock but it wasn’t. You feel like there is an injustice, but it really is only a minor flag for a cushy life.
In terms of sympathy for them. I had the most sympathy for Quinn, played by Fred Hechinger and Belinda, the character of Natasha Rothwell. Even then, Quinn is a horny teenager, and Belinda is clearly ambitious.
I think this is a testament to the number of characters on television designed to be “likable”. People find the characters in this show so obnoxious. I feel like it’s true in life that people have different colors. It’s true in my life. Maybe I’m hanging out with the wrong people.
Connie Britton and Sydney Sweeney
It is also fair. Although I also found Olivia, played by Sydney Sweeney, the most loathsome. She’s evil embodied… but maybe it’s just me.
I met the teenage daughters of friends who scared me.
[Laughter]
It’s not hard to imagine. Going from there, the other interesting thing is that these characters look awful, but, for example, when Nicole and Mark are going through a crisis, we see that they really love each other. Do people need challenges in life to stay focused?
I think in this situation Mark needed to feel that he had a useful purpose in the family. Even though it was an absurd heroic moment, it gives him a sort of swagger that he misses. But yes, a bit of the show – the poem the title is based on is Lotus eaters, which makes a lot of people who are on an island eating lotuses in a sleeping mist. I think sometimes we have times when we realize how much we really have. And these people have a parcel. It relates to most of the people living in western society where we have a lot of amenities that are taken for granted. Our lives are generally quite enviable. But sometimes we need a shake in the system to remind ourselves how lucky we are.
Jake Lacy, Alexandra Daddario and Molly Shannon
To what extent is this relationship corruption fueled by technology and social media? As the record shows, you’ve been very critical of social media in the past.
I criticize it, but I am really a part of it. I’m on the road now, but I keep checking my phone and putting people’s lives in danger.
[Laughter]
I think social media add unreality to our lives. We think we’re plugged into what’s going on, but it becomes a dissociative addiction. Especially when you are on vacation in this disembodied place, these resorts are designed to make you feel like you are a place “elsewhere”. But you live in a bubble and your only connection to the world is through your phone. But in reality, you are living in an alternate reality created by social media and your news feed. I think it’s a very common feeling. Social media leads to this kind of existential anxiety that people experience on vacation. They can’t really escape what they should be escaping, which is this non-stop dialogue on social media.
Absoutely. One theme here that fascinated me was that the story is, in many ways, a meditation on power dynamics. Power over friends, power with money, power over work, sexual power, racial / socio-economic power, substance power over people. What fascinates you about this? What statement do you feel you are making with power dynamics?
The way I thought of it was more about the money – who has the money takes the lead. Although power and money are somehow interchangeable in the way you pose it. I find that to be very true of life. Money can pervert our most intimate relationships. Guest versus hotel employee, employer-employee, husband and wife, within a family, yes. If we’re going to embark on a rich and privileged vacation, I wanted to explore how money speaks no matter who you are and how intimate your relationship is.
Natasha Rothwell and Murray Bartlett
You are a man who has earned his career thanks to his approach to humor which is, for lack of a better word, “cringy”. He often deals with painfully embarrassing situations. Why this approach? What fascinates you about the awkward?
It’s funny. Many people have used these words, “cringey” and “awkward”. When I have the impression that a scene has no tension, it is soft. I also have a very low tolerance for social anxiety. So I tend to correct a smaller, higher frequency voltage as opposed to someone trying to kill someone. Other shows have a more lyrical style. I find myself writing about lower stakes situations, but because the anxiety level is high it tends to seem like awkwardness. I have the impression of being so sensitive to that in real life, when I see him represented, it makes me dizzy. I feel like there’s a kind of energy in the scene where I want to see what’s going on. So I sort of write for myself.
No problem with that. In this context, it is interesting to see the artist reflected in art. I am unfairly advantaged because I read your father’s [Rev. Mel White, the openly gay writer/activist] autobiography and I know you had a painfully awkward “dream vacation” as a kid. It is also interesting that you use a lot of religious hymns on the soundtrack. How autobiographical is the story?
I don’t consider it autobiographical, but it’s personal. I try to approach the things I work on as an “artist” would. But I’m making a product for a TV show. So it’s personal, and I feel like some things are more autobiographical than others. And I feel like there are things that I take from my personal life that end up in the show. With Mark, the story with his father, it was like a guy had a male identity crisis. He has swollen balls, his father has gay sex – it was a series of attacks on his masculinity. It was more about trying to figure out where the character would go than the story of my life.
Tell me more about writing. What satisfaction does it bring you?
You know, I feel like one of the reasons I was able to have this career is that I enjoy writing. So many writers that I know in LA aren’t really into writing. I don’t really like writing when I’m on my 50th studio note set.
Sure.
It’s just painful. But something like that where I’m in a flow and inspired, it can be very …
[Long pause]
Yes?
When I was in the pandemic and not working, I felt uneasy. I feel like when I have something to think about and I have a creative puzzle, it’s a nice break from the existential feelings I have when I’m not writing. So it’s good to occupy my mind. I am frustrated, but in general I like to write.
Fred Hechinger and Steve Zahn
So what’s your next project?
I hope they let me do another season of The white lotus. It would be different with this one, but it would be …
