What it was like to work on The White Lotus, the great success of HBO Max

For a few weeks, The White Lotus is the only thing that is talked about among those who do not miss any fiction of HBO Max. The satire of the platform centers on an eccentric hotel that only those who are fortunate to have enviable economic power go, who quickly begin to expose their personal miseries. The reception of the show was so good that it was quickly confirmed that it will have a second installment.

One of the actors who was part of the show was Jon Gries, whom some may associate with Lost, as the father of Benjamin Linus, and many others will remember their passage through Napoleon Dynamite, where was Uncle Rico. On this occasion, he had to play Greg in the last three episodes of the first installment. In dialogue with Spoiler He talked about what it was like to be part of this much talked about show in recent times. “Wherever I go, people stop me to talk about this. That didn’t even happen to me with Napoleon Dynamite”, he stressed.

“It blows your mind, it’s so good, so original. It’s dark, no doubt, but it makes you laugh, it makes you uncomfortable, because there are moments that really cause you cringe”, he pointed Gries, who also highlighted Mike White, responsible for creating The White Lotus. “Basically, HBO it had no content due to the pandemic, they were scared, ‘what do we do? We have this luxury hotel, who do we know who is the fastest screenwriter of all? Mike White, of course’. He wrote it in three and a half weeks, and before they knew it it was cast and shot. It was a gift from God “, noted the artist whose character maintained a bond with Tanya McQuoidu (Jennifer Coolidge).

Speaking of preparing to be Greg, Gries He talked about how a person who was a government employee all his life could feel and could never afford an accommodation of this kind. “For him it is on his to-do list. I prepared it as if it were something he wanted to do all his life as an adult, stay in a very nice hotel in Maui and go fishing “, he counted.

Filming The White Lotus It occurred in the midst of a pandemic, and the hotel was closed for production. “I was amazed at how well we got along. It was a great cast “, assured the actor. He also remarked how much fun it was to have the hotel just for them. “They opened it at the end of November and people began to arrive, it did not have the same romantic feeling as when we were alone”, he stressed.

The time that he was he shared it mainly with Coolidge, with whom he says he took “very well” and it could have been quite a while. “I helped her make videos for her friends, for people’s birthdays. It’s very funny”, highlighted Gries. “We spent a lot of time together, watching the turtles in the water, going to the beach. It was very easy to get along on camera, because it was to continue that, except that off camera we were friends and on camera we were lovers “, he sentenced.

The morbidness of The White Lotus: having fun with the upper class

It is not the first time that a series about the highest class has been positioned as the most viewed. In the case of HBO, in addition, it stands out Succession as one of the best productions of the last time. You can also mention Bloodline on Netflix or blockbusters like Crazy Rich Asians. The audience loves to see how rich people live.

After being asked about this, Gries he pointed: “It’s a question that still puzzles me to this day”. In fact, he remarked that he always wondered what it is that amuses people about watching this type of fiction or reality shows such as the clan Kardashian. “In this case, in a satire. I think it’s fun to be like a fly on the wall watching them. They have one disaster after another, nothing to complain about, but their lives are horrible. “, he expressed between laughs.