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Fans of The White Lotus know details of each season are kept tightly under wraps. But one thing we do know about season 3 is that it sounds like the cast had a great time filming in Thailand.
While catching up with PEOPLE, Carrie Coon says the cast had a very memorable game night on set. “It was really fun and it was a bunch of grown people drinking out of coconuts and playing [games],” she says. “It was the most fun we had, a great night.”
Even after spending time working with creator Mike White on set, Coon, 43, says she doesn’t know how he plans out each season of the show, which she’s watched from season 1.
Anders Overgaard
“I don’t know how far in advance he’s thinking in terms of stories so it’ll be interesting to see what develops,” the actress says. “I don’t know if he gets sudden inspiration or if it’s a longer game that he’s playing, I don’t know.”
If she had to pick a past character to come back in another season of The White Lotus, Connie Britton’s character Nicole Mossbacher comes to mind. Or one of the “extraordinary Thai actors this season,” Coon says.
“I just feel that they’re all given such rich life you could justify bringing back any person. And I relish the mystery of who it’s going to be,” she says. “I wouldn’t even want to decide, because Mike always has schemes about that.”
Anders Overgaard
Coon’s been a longtime fan of White’s work, so joining the third season along with Walton Goggins, Leslie Bibb, Dom Hetrakul, Jason Isaacs, Michelle Monaghan, Parker Posey, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Aimee Lou Wood and Tayme Thapthimthong among others, has been a joy.
“Tracy [Letts] and I are Mike White fans from before it was cool,” she says of her husband of 10 years. “We have a DVD of Chuck and Buck. Enlightened is one of the most extraordinary and complicated TV shows that’s ever been made. I loved that show.”
Adding, “I felt very fortunate that I had the opportunity to do [White Lotus] of course.”
Coon is also busy working on season 3 of the HBO period drama, The Gilded Age, playing new-money matriarch Bertha Russell. Her performance in season 2 earned her a 2024 Emmy nomination for outstanding actress in a drama series.
Ahead of the awards show on Sept. 15, she says she’s most looking forward to a minute of calm (she shares two children ages 6 and 3 with Letts) with “some time in a hotel room to take a nap before the ceremony.”
And she already knows the post-show plans — going to their favorite Los Angeles restaurant, El Compadre. “We cut out as fast as we can so we can actually eat,” she says.
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The Gilded Age is steaming on Max.
