EXCLUSIVE: Mike White’s The White Lotus is not wasting any time ramping up for Season 3. On Nov. 9, the very day the SAG-AFTRA strike ended at 12:01 AM, the Emmy-winning HBO anthology series started casting for its upcoming third installment by releasing a list of the new characters. Filming is tentatively slated to begin in early February in Thailand, sources said.
Once again, The White Lotus will feature a sprawling, multi-generational cast. Thirteen roles are currently casting, nine of them series regulars — ranging in ages between 18-80s — with a patriarch, a corporate executive, an actress, a couple of mothers, a misfit and a yogi among the bunch, I hear.
Last week, The White Lotus creator Mike White provided a status update on Season 3, which is expected to debut in 2025, sharing his hope to start filming “at the beginning of the year.”
“I’m seriously finishing scripts,” White said at the time of the new installment whose writing was interrupted by the work stoppage.
“It’s going to be a supersized White Lotus,” White said of Season 3. “It’s going to be longer, bigger, crazier. I don’t know what people will think, but I am super excited, so at least for my own barometer, that’s a good thing.”
It is unclear whether this means that the number of episodes would increase again after going up from 6 in Season 1 to 7 in Season 2.
Natasha Rothwell and Jennifer Coolidge in Season 1 of ‘The White Lotus’
Season 1”s Natasha Rothwell is the only cast member confirmed so far for the third installment; she will reprise her role as Belinda in the Thailand-set season, which will follow those that are vacationing at a Wellness Spa.
Season 1’s Connie Britton told Deadline last year that she has had conversations with White about possibly returning for Season 3.
Originally targeted for 2024, Season 3 is “likely moving into 2025” due to the strikes, Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO, HBO and Max, said earlier this month.
Getting the new seasons of The White Lotus, The Last Of Us and Euphoria — all delayed by the work stoppage – up and running has been a major priority for HBO.
Following the Season 2 finale of The White Lotus last December, White said that Season 3 will be exploring “death in Eastern religion and spirituality.”
Said HBO’s head of drama Francesca Orsi in May, “It’s an exploration about spirituality versus the ego. And it’s set against the Eastern religion.”
