“The White Lotus” Season 3: 23 Behind-The-Scenes Facts You Probably Didn't Know

…although Jason Isaacs did seemingly get into a couple of barnies behind the scenes, too

“There are tensions and difficulties, I don’t know if they spilled from on screen to off-screen, or if it would have happened anyway,” he told The Guardian, recalling “alliances that formed and broke”, “romances that formed and broke”, “friendships that formed and broke” among the cast.

He admitted: “I can’t pretend I wasn’t involved in some off-screen drama. Dave has seen it before, twice, and so has Mike. I can’t speak for them, but I imagine they think it feeds into the on-screen drama, and they might well be right.”

During production, Mike White works on scripts until the bitter end – and it’s a surprisingly collaborative process

“I don’t want to be somebody who’s niggly about every word,” he told The Guardian, adding that he prefers characters to feel “lived in” and “natural”.

Jason also told Time: “It’s an odd paradox that he both wrote it all so precisely and is also prepared to throw it all away and give it over to the actors and just stir the pot.”

He did draw the line at Patrick Schwarzenegger trying to make his ‘douche’ character more likeable, though

Patrick told Interview magazine that on one of his first days of filming, he arrived at a scene late on in the series, and decided he would play the scene “as though my character is changing, and he’s going to have this come-to-Jesus moment”.

“We did the first take, and Mike comes to me and says, ‘What the fuck was that?’,” he revealed. “He’s very direct, but in a funny way.”

Mike went on to remind the former star of The Staircase that while the show itself runs for months, the character arrived at the White Lotus hotel less than a week ago within the story.

“You don’t need to have a huge change in your life in six days,” Mike apparently pointed out. “You’re on a vacation. The audience can see that maybe there’s some changes coming, but I don’t want you to have a big change’.” 

If you’re wondering… yes, that hotel stay is free, but the cast do still have to pay their way in other areas

“The one thing they don’t tell you when you check into The White Lotus is how expensive it is to check out of The White Lotus,” Walter Goggins told Stephen Colbert last year.

He explained: “They pay for your room, but you pay for your incidentals. After the first six weeks, I swear this is a true story, not just for me but for everybody, I go to pay my bill and I started laughing. He handed me the bill and I was like, ‘ha ha, yeah right’. You’re telling me that Thai-spiced cashews cost that much money?”