The White Lotus Cast Opens Up After Watching the Finale Together, Here’s What They Had To Say
The White Lotus season 3 cast got emotional while watching the season three finale together, reacting to shocking deaths, powerful character arcs and that unforgettable ending. Here’s everything they shared.
You could feel it in the air, something was about to shift. Not just for the characters in The White Lotus, but for the actors who brought them to life. As the much-anticipated season three finale dropped on Sunday, a good chunk of the cast gathered for an emotional evening at the Four Seasons Westlake Village. This wasn’t just a casual watch party. It was a goodbye, a reckoning and for some, a heartbreak.
In the room were Jason Isaacs, Leslie Bibb, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Aimee Lou Wood, Tayme Thapthimthong, Sarah Catherine Hook, Sam Nivola, Jon Gries, Nicholas Duvernay and Charlotte Le Bon – all seated together. They were experiencing the final episode at the exact same time as fans across the world. While the audience gasped at the on-screen deaths of Chelsea (Wood), Rick (Walton Goggins), and Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), the people in that hotel ballroom were going through something much deeper.
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“We were all crying backstage, we held each other for a long time. I don’t know because this thing is coming to an end or because it’s just such a beautiful story," Isaacs shared with The Hollywood Reporter (THR).
For Wood, the loss of Chelsea hit hard, even though she knew it was coming. She’d felt the weight of it looming long before the cameras rolled. “For about two weeks before we shot it, I felt super weird. It was like this odd, ominous thing that was just hanging over us, and then it was like the hottest day ever and Walton had to carry me so many times and it was so hot," she remembered.
The finale’s most dramatic moment? Gaitok, the security guard played by Thapthimthong, fatally shoots Rick while he’s desperately trying to get help for Chelsea. It wasn’t an easy scene for the actor. In fact, he was reluctant.
“At first I felt like I don’t want to shoot him in the back, let’s turn around and have little gunfight… but we had a discussion with (creator) Mike and I remember he said like, ‘Trust me, it will be justified.’ And I feel like it really was," he said.
There was chaos elsewhere too, especially within the twisted saga of the Ratliff family. In a storyline that shocked even longtime fans, Isaacs’ character, the family patriarch, decides to poison his own kin, only to backtrack at the last minute. Still, the damage is done: young Lachlan, played by Sam Nivola, is accidentally poisoned.
Talking about what’s next for the Ratliffs, Isaacs didn’t hold back. “I think the Ratliff wing at Duke University was probably pulled down. He, ironically, of all the characters that Mike throws into this mix, he’s the one that actually, genuinely finds real spiritual enlightenment at the end, and is OK when he looks in the water at the end," Isaacs reflected.
“What will happen to them? They’ll have to get jobs. I think that’s going to stick in Victoria’s throat quite hard. I doubted them and they will be fine, they just won’t be fine in gigantic houses with huge Tesla trucks," he joked.
Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, admitted he hadn’t read the full finale script, just the parts that concerned his character, Saxon. Still, the emotional weight of the episode hit him.
Hook, who plays Piper, shared her thoughts on her character deciding against staying at a monastery in Thailand. “I guess she is her mother’s daughter," she said.
“She’s just a little rich girl and that’s The White Lotus, and it’s so good. And I actually feel like she kind of did the reverse of everyone," she said, pointing to how other characters found peace, while Piper accepted her privilege instead.
Nivola also opened up about the intense scene where his character nearly dies.
Bibb had a different memory to share. She remembered a moment of doubt early on, reading her scenes with Carrie Coon and Michelle Monaghan and wondering if their storyline was too tame compared to the wild chaos of other arcs.
As for Jon Gries, a White Lotus veteran, fans may have to say goodbye – at least for now.
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know so all I can say is every time I leave, I assume it’s over," he said about returning for season four.
Finally, Wood returned to what made this finale feel so uniquely poignant. She got a bit more philosophical, sitting with the pain and the beauty of Chelsea’s death.
And that’s exactly what The White Lotus has always been about, pleasure and consequence, privilege and pain. And in this finale? Love and loss are as inseparable as ever.
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