Who are the stars of ‘The White Lotus’ season 3?
Wellness, spirituality, and healing (both as disciplines and a business) are set to be major themes this season. Here, we break down the stacked ensemble cast and what to expect
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PACK YOU’RE BAGS, we’re going to Thailand . . . via season three of The White Lotus. The Emmy Award-winning show is back this year with a new stacked cast of talent, featuring K-Pop sensation Lisa making her acting debut, and a prospective comeback for indie genre legend Parker Posey.
But how does showrunner Mike White keep the series so fresh? Location sets the tone for the character dynamics and themes explored. And, excitingly, this season brings us to Southeast Asia. Scroll on for when and where to watch it in Australia, who is in the ensemble cast, and what to expect (other than someone dying, of course).
Who is Parker Posey?
If any of the new cast members ought to have the meteoric comeback like we saw with Jennifer Coolidge in seasons one and two, please let it be Parker Posey. For those who are watching Posey for the first time, the 56-year-old actor has a prodigious body of indie work. We’re talking gems like Dazed and Confused (1993), Party Girl (1995), The House of Yes (1997), Scream 3 (2000), a muse to writer-director Christopher Guest in Waiting For Guffman (1996) and Best In Show, and more recently seen opposite Joaquin Phoenix in Beau Is Afraid (2023). Posey is that perfect mix of indie obscurity and pop-culture appeal for something like The White Lotus. In the new season, Posey plays the pill-popping Ratliff matriarch, Victoria, with a thick Southern accent.
Who is Jason Isaacs?
Alongside fellow Brit Aimee Lou Wood, who plays the aloof Chelsea, Jason Isaacs is playing Timothy Ratliff, the wealthy husband of Posey’s Victoria. To a particular generation, you’d know Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, the platinum blonde dark wizard with a killer walking stick-cum-sheathed wand and the father of Draco Malfoy, in the Harry Potter franchise.
Who is Aimee Lou Wood?
Aimee Lou Wood’s best known role to date is as Aimee Gibbs in the hit Netflix show Sex Education. In the show, Aimee Gibbs is the wide-eyed and optimistic friend to Emma Mackey’s Maeve. During the press tour for the new season of The White Lotus, the Manchester actor said that The White Lotus was the only TV series was a dream project to land on.
Where to watch The White Lotus season 3 in Australia
The new season will be streaming on Binge in Australia. New episodes will drop on every Monday at 1:10 pm AEDT.
The White Lotus season 3 cast: who is in it?
In its third iteration, we’ve come to expect that writer Mike White has found his secret recipe to make a killer ensemble cast – and that lies in the archetypes. But this is a good thing as White never exhausts his reserves; he doesn’t create facsimiles of seasons past, White knows elite vacationers are their own diverse pool of inspiration.
What gives each ensemble cast their own flavour is largely informed by the location which gives the characters their dynamic. Since this is Thailand, expect this lot to be of the Eat, Pray, Love type of wealthy holiday-goer. The most insufferable type yet? Scroll on for our break down of this season’s crew:
The girl-trippers
- Leslie Bibb as Kate. As one of the three long-time friends making a girl-tripping it to Thailand, expect the Eat, Pray, Love high-jinks from this trio.
- Carrie Coon as Laurie. Coon also stars in another HBO heavyweight, as the new money social climber Mrs. Russell in The Gilded Age (its third season is slated for release later this year).
- Michelle Monaghan as Jaclyn.
The couple
- Walton Goggins as Rick Hatchett, who is the first sugar daddy featured on The White Lotus.
- Aimee Lou Wood as Chelsea, is the sugar baby in question, travelling with her older boyfriend to the resort.
The dysfunctional family
- Jason Isaacs as Timothy Ratliff. A wealthy businessman vacationing with his family, who we learn is in the midst of bankruptcy.
- Parker Posey as Victoria Ratfliff, the wealthy matriarch who loves a Xanax. If the Jennifer Coolidge renaissance was telling of Mike White’s affinity for bringing back queens of the indie genre, time will tell for Posey come TV awards season.
- Patrick Schwarzenegger as Saxton Ratliff, the eldest Ratcliff son who is a nepo-baby working works for his father’s company. (Schwarzenegger is also the son of that Schwarzanegger.)
- Sarah Catherine Hook as Piper Ratliff, the middle child. Piper is a college senior studying religion, making her vacation spot very apt as one of the world’s highest concentrations of Buddhists.
- Sam Nivola as Lochlan Ratliff, the youngest child.
The White Lotus staff
- Natasha Rothwell as Belinda Lindsey, who is reprising her role from the first season; like Coolidge, the only actor to do so. As the spa manager at the Hawai’i branch, Belinda is making the journey to learn everything about Thailand’s spiritual thinking.
- Lalisa Manobal (aka Lisa of K-Pop girl-group Blackpink) as Mook, a health mentor for the guests.
- Tayme Thapthomthong as Gaitok, a security guard at the White Lotus. FInally, third time’s the charm, the hotel brand can’t deal with any more deaths.
- Lek Patravadi as Sritala, one of the owners of the White Lotus, who pioneered its health program.
What is The White Lotus season 3 about?
Given the location, and with a bigger assemblage of White Lotus staff appearing this season in the main cast, including the return of Hawai’i spa manager Belinda Lindsey (Natasha Rothwell), we gauge that health, spirituality, and wellness will be big themes this season. Particularly with what Mike White has explored so far about colonialism, season three may delve into the Western world’s brand of healing and spiritual thinking, and, if indeed, money can solve these problems.
And just putting it out there to White, could a White Lotus ski resort be in the cards for a future season? Our pitch: the slopes can be deadly, and après-ski is a cesspool of madness and entitlement. And the clothes.
Where was The White Lotus season 3 filmed?
Locations are around Thailand’s capital Bangkok, Koh Samui, and Phuket. But the resort in question, the Four Seasons Resort in Koh Samui was the stand-in for this season’s White Lotus resort. Season one’s resort stand-in was also a Four Seasons resort in Maui at Wailea in Hawai’i. The chain knows how to do the tropics.
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