Making a statement. The White Lotus drew viewers in with surprising plot twists and some very NSFW sex scenes.
The HBO series, which debuted in July 2021, focuses on the guests and employees at a fictional resort that go through personal ups and downs while on vacation. The anthology series is also known for a mysterious death — or two — that fans have to wait to see uncovered.
During season 2, viewers were shocked when Harper (Aubrey Plaza) accidentally snuck a peek at Cameron (Theo James) while he undressed. Although the moment wasn’t a sex scene, the actor later opened up about bringing the intimate power play to life.
“The truth of it was you go into these things and you have a conversation with the director and the producers, and they go, ‘OK, for this, we’re going to use a prosthetic, we’re gonna use something,’” James explained during a December 2022 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon about the scene that made headlines. “It’s a pee-pee prosthetic.”
The Divergent star hoped the prosthetic wouldn’t be too “distracting” for the audience. “He needs to be [a] regular Joe because the scene’s not about the pee-pee, it’s about power play in sex [and] whether he did it deliberately or whether it was an accident,” he said.
At the time, James joked about the final product, adding, “I mean, it’s bigger than that. It’s like she stole it off a donkey in the field. The thing is ginormous.”
Creator Mike White, meanwhile, recalled the trepidation he faced when it came to directing sex scenes.
“I’m very timid about asking people to undress and get into sexual situations. It’s not my wheelhouse. There were definitely times on this shoot that I was like, what have I got myself into? My threshold for awkwardness is very low,” the writer detailed to NPR in November 2022. “The actors are much more confident and uninhibited than I am. That was new terrain for me. It just felt like it was important because it really is baked into the narrative.”
White also weighed in on fan reactions to the steamy story lines. “It’s funny, though, how now that the show is airing, how much you realize a graphic sex scene or a sex scene that kind of is titillating for various reasons, does just spike and generate an interest in the populace, for better or worse,” he shared.
Scroll down for the White Lotus cast’s most candid quotes about creating those provocative moments:
Making a statement. The White Lotus drew viewers in with surprising plot twists and some very NSFW sex scenes.
The HBO series, which debuted in July 2021, focuses on the guests and employees at a fictional resort that go through personal ups and downs while on vacation. The anthology series is also known for a mysterious death — or two — that fans have to wait to see uncovered.
During season 2, viewers were shocked when Harper (Aubrey Plaza) accidentally snuck a peek at Cameron (Theo James) while he undressed. Although the moment wasn’t a sex scene, the actor later opened up about bringing the intimate power play to life.
“The truth of it was you go into these things and you have a conversation with the director and the producers, and they go, ‘OK, for this, we’re going to use a prosthetic, we’re gonna use something,’” James explained during a December 2022 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon about the scene that made headlines. “It’s a pee-pee prosthetic.”
The Divergent star hoped the prosthetic wouldn’t be too “distracting” for the audience. “He needs to be [a] regular Joe because the scene’s not about the pee-pee, it’s about power play in sex [and] whether he did it deliberately or whether it was an accident,” he said.
At the time, James joked about the final product, adding, “I mean, it’s bigger than that. It’s like she stole it off a donkey in the field. The thing is ginormous.”
Creator Mike White, meanwhile, recalled the trepidation he faced when it came to directing sex scenes.
“I’m very timid about asking people to undress and get into sexual situations. It’s not my wheelhouse. There were definitely times on this shoot that I was like, what have I got myself into? My threshold for awkwardness is very low,” the writer detailed to NPR in November 2022. “The actors are much more confident and uninhibited than I am. That was new terrain for me. It just felt like it was important because it really is baked into the narrative.”
White also weighed in on fan reactions to the steamy story lines. “It’s funny, though, how now that the show is airing, how much you realize a graphic sex scene or a sex scene that kind of is titillating for various reasons, does just spike and generate an interest in the populace, for better or worse,” he shared.
Scroll down for the White Lotus cast’s most candid quotes about creating those provocative moments:
Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO
Using Prosthetics
“I just wanted it not to be distracting,” James explained in December 2022. “He needs to be [a] regular Joe because the scene’s not about the pee-pee, it’s about power play in sex [and] whether he did it deliberately or whether it was an accident.”
Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO
Pulling Back the Curtain
Ahead of the season 2 finale, Beatrice Grannò broke down how she filmed the special moment between Mia and Valentina.
“The environment was really safe. Having an intimacy coordinator there was very helpful because it’s a difficult thing to do. We rehearsed it before, and I talked with Sabrina [Impacciatore] and we found a way to do it and feel comfortable,” she told Variety in December 2022. “If I have to be completely honest, we both felt a bit embarrassed, but that embarrassment helped the energy of the scene. Because I have to be the one in control, it wasn’t easy to play that.”
The actress added: “I kind of went the opposite direction — instead of playing the sexy girl who uses her body to get what she wants, I wanted to go to a much deeper level. … I think Mia likes Valentina a little bit. It’s equal in a way. It was very sweet. Valentina needed to be embraced by somebody. It’s not about having sex, it’s about being embraced for who she is.”
Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO
What Goes on Behind the Scenes
“As a director, I’m very timid about asking people to undress and get into sexual situations. It’s not my wheelhouse,” White admitted to NPR. “There were definitely times on this shoot that I was like, what have I got myself into? My threshold for awkwardness is very low. The actors are much more confident and uninhibited than I am. That was new terrain for me. It just felt like it was important because it really is baked into the narrative.”
Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO
Shocking the Audience
During season 2, Tanya saw Jack and Quentin having sex after they previously claimed to be family members. According to Leo Woodall, the plot twist was meant to mirror a past sex scene.
“I just thought it was kind of shocking but so cool. And so White Lotus,” the Vampire Academy star, who plays Jack, told Bustle in November 2022 about the season 1 sequence between Armand (Murray Bartlett) and Dillon (Lukas Gage). “I thought it was almost an honor to have our own moment in this season.”
Woodall credited White for giving the actors space to explore the dynamic, adding, “He just allowed us to play with his script and make things up if we wanted to. It was up to us to figure it out on our own and allow the audience to kind of figure it out as well.”
Credit: Courtesy of HBO
Getting Candid About the Experience
In a November 2022 interview, Adam DiMarco candidly discussed his approach to filming sex scenes.
“You just have to disassociate. It would be great if HBO could make a cut of the episodes that were family-friendly for the actors, that didn’t include their sex or nudity scenes. But that doesn’t exist,” he told Interview Magazine about the public response to the NSFW sequence. “I’ve come to accept that that’s out there and of course, I chose to do all of that. I could’ve said no to any of those scenes.”
According to DiMarco, having an intimacy coordinator helped him feel “comfortable” filming certain Albie scenes. “I think the scenes turned out great. I watched episode five last night. It was my first time watching an episode with a large group of people. I was with Sabrina and John [Gries], and a lot of mutual friends, and they wanted to watch the episode,” he continued. “Just before they put it on, I had a mini panic attack. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can watch this episode in a room full of people. Especially since it starts with a sex scene. This is going to be a weird experience.'”
The Magicians alum added: “But Sabrina really calmed me down and encouraged me just to try it. I was definitely cringing and hiding behind my hands when that stuff was going on, but it was cool to hear the reactions to the episode as a whole.”
Credit: Mario Perez/HBO
Addressing Their Approach
While season 1 was airing in July 2021, Bartlett opened up about the work that went behind the shocking Armand and Dillion sex scene.
“Honestly, we didn’t have a lot of conversations outside of just working on the scenes at the time. I think partly because it was just there; it was just written in the script,” he told Decider at the time. “This character was fully realized and complicated and had all these aspects that I don’t think they needed explanation.”
The Australia native, who played the White Lotus manager, praised White for his help.
“There wasn’t a lot of talk [about] outside of the moment of what we were playing with. And I love that way of working, that Mike just makes you feel like you can completely play on set,” he said. “You’re just exploring, but he gives you this incredible library of information about the character in the script. So I didn’t have a lot of questions and I feel like he didn’t really need to explain a lot of stuff. We just played.”
