If there’s one thing The White Lotus fans can count on, it’s Jason Isaacs delivering all the behind-the-scenes gossip.
Isaacs, 61, made headlines recently for alluding to potential offscreen feuds on the season 3 production. He also made comments about cast drama, telling The Guardian recently, “It was a theatre camp, but to some extent an open prison camp: you couldn’t avoid one another.”
The actor acknowledged “tensions and difficulties” while filming.
“I don’t know if they spilled from on screen to off screen, or if it would have happened anyway,” he noted. “There were alliances that formed and broke, romances that formed and broke, friendships that formed and broke. It’s a long period of time for people to be away from their family with an open bar and all the wildness being in Thailand allows.”
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While witnessing the alleged tension, Isaacs recalled not being exempt, adding, “I can’t pretend I wasn’t involved in some offscreen drama. Dave has seen it before, twice, and so has [creator] Mike [White]. I can’t speak for them, but I imagine they think it feeds into the onscreen drama, and they might well be right. I think the heat contributed to these fissures appearing.”
He concluded: “I was in some ways used to it, but within a couple of weeks my wife [Emma Hewitt] went, ‘Some of these people are f****ing mad.’ I said, ‘No, it’s just a bunch of actors away on location, love. You’ve forgotten what it’s like.’”
This isn’t the first time Isaacs has pulled back the curtain on what it was like to film season 3, which aired its finale on Sunday, April 6.
“It was like a cross between summer camp and Lord of the Flies but in a gilded cage,” Isaacs shared in an interview with Vulture last month. “It wasn’t a holiday. Some people got very close, there were friendships that were made and friendships that were lost.”
Isaacs, who played Timothy, didn’t name who was no longer close off screen.
“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,” he continued. “They say in the show, ‘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.”
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The outlet offered Isaacs the chance to elaborate, which he laughed off, adding, “Absolutely not. I became very close to some people and less close to others, but we still all had that experience together and there’s a certain level of discretion required.”
Isaacs also acknowledged that he didn’t know whether the interactions affected the final product.
“When it comes to talking about what happens when you pretend to be another person, I’m slightly at a loss. I’ve done it for decades — and not just the job, but talking about it — and I think almost everything I’ve ever said has been complete bulls***,” he explained. “I just try to be Tim Ratliff in his situation.”
The White Lotus is currently streaming on Max.
