The line between fiction and reality blurred for “The White Lotus” cast this season.
Actor Aimee Lou Wood discussed the dizzying situation in an interview with The Sunday Times ahead of the season three finale, which premieres tonight on HBO and HBO Max.
This season of “The White Lotus” was filmed in Thailand, where the star-studded cast lived by themselves at the Four Seasons in Koh Samui for seven months.
The cast includes Walton Goggins, Natasha Rothwell, Lalisa Manobal, and Wood, who plays Chelsea.
“The thing that I craved the most was a kitchen,” Wood told The Sunday Times. “I wanted to be able to walk to the shops and buy groceries and make food. My self-esteem wasn’t great because I wasn’t being a normal person. I wasn’t doing my own washing, folding my clothes. I started to feel like I was in The Sims.”
Wood said the unique filming conditions caused the cast to slip too far into their characters. The outlet said the cast would hang out together outside filming and realize they’d regurgitated a character’s speech.
“There was a bit of leakage. We were all accidentally Method,” Wood said, referring to Method acting. “It has happened every season. Everyone has lost their marbles a little bit.”
Wood also spoke about the accidental Method acting during a recent podcast episode of “The Run-Through with Vogue.”
“I think I was accidentally Method, ’cause Mia, who was doing my hair, halfway through was like, ‘Baby, you need to go home, ’cause I dunno if I’m talking to Chelsea or Aimee,'” Wood said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know who I am.’ And there was a lot of personal mirroring going on [with Walton]. We’ve not had the same lives as them, but everyone’s essence is pretty similar to their character — apart from Patrick [Schwarzenegger]. He’s nothing like Saxon.”
Representatives for Wood did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Jason Isaacs, who plays Timothy Ratliff, told Vulture there was some “drama” behind the scenes.
“It was like a cross between summer camp and Lord of the Flies but in a gilded cage. It wasn’t a holiday,” he said in March. ” Some people got very close, there were friendships that were made and friendships that were lost. All the things you would imagine with a group of people unanchored from their home lives on the other side of the world, in the intense pressure cooker of the working environment with eye-melting heat and insects and late nights.”
“What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand, but there’s an off-screen White Lotus as well, with fewer deaths but just as much drama,” Isaacs added.
