Jennifer Coolidge will not forgive Mike White
The White Lotus director might "just adore" the actress - in fact, he created the entire thing for her - but she's dealing with a few different emotions towards him right now.
The White Lotus director might "just adore" the actress - in fact, he created the entire thing for her - but she's dealing with a few different emotions towards him right now.
This contains spoilers.
Jennifer Coolidge does not forgive director Mike White for killing off her character Tanya McQuoid in The White Lotus season two finale.
The actress begged White to film an alternate ending in which the rich woman survives.
"Should we just do one take where I pull myself up on the shore? Just one?" White recalls Coolidge saying.
White and Coolidge watched the final episode of season two together.
"Jennifer's the reason I did White Lotus in the first place," he told The New York Times. "I just wanted to write something for her and I just adore her."
Whilst he doesn't have any regrets about killing off her character, he admits that "it's sad" we had to see the inimitable Tanya McQuoid go.
"I didn’t realise it until yesterday, but now I am sad. It’s going to be hard to do it without her. There’s definitely going to be something missing."
Does Coolidge forgive White for killing off her character? "No, not at all," she told the New York times. "I'll forever be sad about this."
Did Tanya's death really have to be so "derpy" (White's own word)?
"It reminds me a little of Jennifer, because Jennifer, like, she’ll come and do this incredible performance and then lock herself in a bathroom. I can see Jennifer in this situation actually killing all the bad guys, surviving this assassination attempt, and then tripping on her way out the door."
By all accounts, no one in Hollywood is having more fun than the cast of The White Lotus, which is probably exactly how director Mike White wanted it to be.
Speaking with Naomi Fry for The New Yorker Radio Hour, White revealed that his MO for creating The White Lotus was to 'go to new places and have a life adventure, while still trying to make something artistic.'
White, a reality competition show fanatic (he's participated in The Amazing Race twice, Survivor, and I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here), who has written critically adored shows and films like Enlightened and School of Rock, said that he never wants creating to feel like a job.
"I don't want a job," he said.
"I'm not somebody who is interested in keeping a franchise going creatively."
"This felt great," he said of The White Lotus. "I can bring in new people, tell a story, go somewhere new. To me, that's cracking the code."
On shooting season 2 in Sicily, the director said "that's the life I always wanted, as a middle-class kid growing up in homogenous Pasadena."
"Now I'm spoiled. Unless I'm firing on all of these lifestyle pistons it's just, forget it. I never want to drive on the 405 to a stage in Burbank again."
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