HBO’s Emmy-winning The White Lotus, by Mike White, returns for Season 2 with a hilariously dark take on the ‘anxieties and hard truths’ of holidays

The man who ruined holidays is back. Mike White, the comically devilish hand behind HBO’s The White Lotus, has returned for a second season. When confronted with that charge, White just laughs and cops to it: “My experience is, on vacation you escape one thing only to find a new set of anxieties and hard truths about yourself and those close to you.” That’s the thematic scaffolding that supports both seasons of the pandemic-spawned hit, which in 2021 was nominated for 20 Emmys and won 10, including best limited series, best director for White and best supporting actor awards for Murray Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge. The source of White’s vacations-are-hell attitude? Blame the CBS reality series The Amazing Race, on which he competed in 2009 with his father Mel. “It was fun, but it was like a vacation on steroids,” says White, whose credits include School of Rock (writer) and Chuck & Buck (actor). “So whenever I’m in an airport or taxi or hotel I have a sense of being so stressed out.” Last season, White and his cast were at the Covid-19-closed Four Seasons resort on Maui, in Hawaii, enduring a form of forced creative captivity that helped up the angst. The show opened with a mystery murder, then rewound to spotlight the troubled lives of both the hotel’s staff and their well-heeled guests. This season, we’re at the White Lotus in Taormina in Sicily, Italy, (a stand-in for the real San Domenico Palace hotel, another Four Seasons property). Once again, a shocking death opens the season, and we quickly meet the hotel’s neurotic general manager, Valentina – compellingly portrayed by Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore – and a mostly new set of guests who seem to have more problems than fun. Filming at an actual resort once again helped the actors access their characters on a primal level. Ultimately, a sense that “those happy couples aren’t as blissful as they seem to be” even started to infect the cast, which took over the San Domenico in February when it was closed for the off-season but remained for a bit as the hotel welcomed real guests. “Mike hits on something basic, which is that when you go on vacation you bring your problems with you; you don’t become a different person,” co-star Will Sharpe says. “So I’ll be somewhere now and overhear a conversation and think, ‘Oh, that’s a little White Lotus.’” Sharpe plays newly minted tech millionaire Ethan Spiller, the husband of Harper (Aubrey Plaza). The couple grapples with their new-found wealth while on holiday with Ethan’s one-time college roommate, obnoxious finance bro Cameron Babcock (Theo James) and his deceptively doting wife Daphne (Meghann Fahy). Other hotel guests include a multi-generational trio in search of their Sicilian roots: Bert Di Grasso (F. Murray Abraham), his son Dominic (Michael Imperioli) and grandson Albie (Adam DiMarco). They’re on an ancestral quest marred by some deep flaws and insecurities. And rounding out the troubled holidaymakers is one holdover couple from the first season, the now-married Tanya McQuoid-Hunt (Coolidge) and her Hawaii-sourced beau Greg (Jon Gries). Tanya, an off-kilter millionaire, has brought along her assistant, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) for company, while Greg’s demeanour gives Tanya solid reasons to worry. Coolidge is a veteran of improvisation, as with her riotous turn in Christopher Guest’s 2000 pampered-dog epic, Best in Show. But she and other actors confirm that’s not the way things work on White Lotus. “Mike really sets up the whole structure of it, so much of the dialogue is all Mike White,” Coolidge says. “All of it is so fun to say and live.” Abraham calls the script “a gift right from heaven; a couple of pages and you realise that”. Imperioli adds, “It’s really a testament to Mike’s imagination and skills as a writer to come up with this world and design it this way.” The first season dealt squarely in the realm of “rich people sucking”, as Imperioli (The Sopranos) puts it. Hawaiian Lotus also seemed to play a bit more for broad laughs, especially when it came to the manic antics of Bartlett’s drug-fuelled manager. This season digs deeper and focuses more on the flaws inherent in the male of the species. And James embraced his role with slimy fury. HBO’s Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin is a slasher without the male gaze White wanted Coolidge to return, along with Gries, to see how Tanya developed after getting over the loss of her mother and marrying her beau. “I thought, I’d love to know what the next instalment is [for Tanya],” Coolidge says. “He’s never boring, Mike White. Always fascinating.” So is White busy scheming up another chapter for Coolidge and new characters and locations for Season 3? “I’m just finishing up [editing] the last episode, so today I don’t think I can do anything ever again,” he says with a laugh. “But give me a few weeks after sitting around the house.”