At first, Natasha Rothwell was intimidated to check back into Mike White’s deluxe resort anthology series, The White Lotus, for season three.
“I was really nervous,” she tells me, before listing some of the talented actors White assembled for the Thailand-set third season. “You have Parker Posey, Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb, Jason Isaacs. You have Aimee Lou [Wood]—just incredible actors,” she says. During a welcome dinner for the cast the first week of shooting, Rothwell kept to herself, watching the new cast mix and mingle from a distance. “My social anxiety necessitates that I kind of hug a wall and watch,” she says
It turns out that the new crop of hotel guests were the ones with butterflies in their stomach. “Carrie [Coon], of all people, came up to me,” she says. “I was like, ‘I'm so nervous to meet you and everyone else.’ She's like, ‘We're over there right now talking about how we're all nervous to meet you.’ Then my world kind of shifted. I was like, ‘Oh, okay. I've done this before, and they haven't.’"
On season one of White Lotus, Rothwell was introduced as Belinda Lindsey, an employee at the White Lotus Maui who dreams of opening a health and wellness center of her own. Jennfier Coolidge’s hapless but arguably well-intentioned millionairess Tanya McQuoid takes a shine to Belinda and dangles the possibility of making her fantasies come true. But by the end of season one, Belinda’s dreams are dashed when Tanya abandons her after falling head over heels for Greg (Jon Gries), a supposedly terminally ill hotel guest. To everyone’s surprise, Gries’s conman Greg is back for yet another stay at the White Lotus in season three. In episode two, it looks like Belinda clocks Greg’s familiar presence, sans Tanya, across the outdoor hotel dining area.
“There's not much I can say about that,” Rothwell says cryptically.
What Rothwell can say is that filming this season of The White Lotus felt like night and day compared to season one, which was shot during the peak of Covid in 2020 before vaccinations were available. “It felt like Rumspringa,” she says of the third season. “Season one, it was literally masks on, six feet apart, testing multiple times a day. That production really did set the tone for the COVID protocols that would then be replicated for other productions.” Season three was a whole new world, with group dinners and going on mini-adventures with fellow cast members. “It was me and Parker Posey going to a little cafe and walking down to Old Town,” she says.
Below, Rothwell chats with VF about everything from being Black abroad to whether there’s romance in Belinda’s future.
Vanity Fair: What was it like to step back into Belinda's shoes after a full season away?
Natasha Rothwell: I feel like Carrie Coon said it best: It's like putting on a wet bathing suit. I know this fits and it feels a little weird, but once I get in the water it's going to feel like old times. That's exactly it. I am a little neuro-spicy, so I kind of psyched myself out leading up to it and binged season one all over again and binged season two just to make sure I was in the White Lotus mindset. I showed up and I'm like, "Oh, I know what I'm doing. I know what this is." So, it felt like coming home really. It really did.
English (US) ·