Relocating to a luxurious hotel in Thailand for six months sounds like a job only conceivable through a dream or a stroke of good fortune.
Season three of The White Lotus awarded that luxury to its cast and crew which, this time around, includes Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood, The Fallout’s Walton Goggins and Gen V star Patrick Schwarzenegger among others.
Mission: Impossible star Michelle Monaghan plays Jaclyn on the show, a woman on a “girls’ trip” consumed with the competing power dynamic between the group.
Speaking to Sky News, Monaghan called her time on the series – filmed in Thailand – a “once in a lifetime opportunity”.
“[My family] came over and we got to have adventures, and it was just a very, very special time. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and this kind of takes the cake.
“They are their own little adventurers themselves, and they love the water so obviously, we’re in Thailand, we all went and got our diving certificates. We spent a lot of time diving together and we really bonded in new and different ways.”
Bafta winner Aimee Lou Wood’s experience differed slightly.
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Adjusting to a new country alone during, what she says, felt like a big moment of change in her life moving flat and turning thirty.
“It was obviously incredible. But yeah, I was really overwhelmed. I was so overwhelmed and I kind of remained overwhelmed.
“I had this amazing adventure, but I missed home. But then when I was at home, I really missed the adventure. And I also missed my friends that I’ve made in The White Lotus because they did become home.”
The actress says she went straight out to meet her friends the moment she returned to the UK after filming.
“I was crying at the beautiful London litter. I was like ‘It’s just the most gorgeous place, London’. And it was probably me crying at a bin, but it was just home.”
Television show boosts tourism
Similar to Emily In Paris, The White Lotus has become somewhat of a featured advert for each of the Four Seasons hotels, where filming takes place, as well as the surrounding area.
If season three follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, which were set in Hawaii and Sicily, the number of visitors to Thailand is expected to grow by 20% thanks to television tourism.
HBO partnered with the Tourism Authority of Thailand during production, filming in and around the Four Seasons Koh Samui and the neighbouring Phuket and Bangkok.
Who’s in The White Lotus?
The latest season of the hit show sees series one alumna Natasha Rothwell return with a whole new cast: Jason Isaacs, Walton Goggins, Aimee Lou Wood, Michelle Monaghan, Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sam Nivola and Parker Posey.
Rothwell reprises her role as Belinda Lindsey from season one – the spa manager eager to create her own business.
The American actress received a call from the show’s creator Mike White about the possibility of returning for another season and says she was in disbelief when he officially asked her to return.
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“He [Mike White] hadn’t put pen to paper yet, so… I didn’t have any guarantee of a part. And then when he followed up again after the scripts were written, then I knew it was real.
“My life. It’s ridiculous. Like if I went back in a time machine and I told that little, you know, neurotic girl in Miss Mandy O’Neill’s [theatre] class being like, ‘You’re going to travel the world, doing your art in your craft’.”
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Season three of The White Lotus launches on Sky and streaming service NOW on 17 February.
