Jason Isaacs
stars
in
HBOMAX
series
The White Lotus
season 3
Interview by Stella Hofferman
While the rest of us are battling with an excruciatingly cold winter, summer has just begun for the guests of The White Lotus Resort in Thailand, and they’re battling more than just extreme weather–these high-status vacationers are at war with their friends, their family, their partners, the occasional armed robber, and worse, themselves.
The third-installment of Mike White’s award-winning HBO series The White Lotus introduced a new star-studded lineup to their cast of characters, including the incredible Jason Isaacs as Timothy, head of the Ratliff family. During what was supposed to be a relaxing stay at The White Lotus, the Ratliffs wrestle with financial (and perhaps, legal) trouble, toxic masculinity, and some potentially-incestuous sibling dynamics.
Today, Jason Isaacs sits down with CONTENTS MAN to discuss his portrayal of Timothy Ratliff, the scorching yet beautiful conditions in Thailand, accent work, and more!
Your character Timothy–one of this season’s lead characters–is a wealthy husband and father who initially appears as jaded and egotistical, but immediately crumbles under pressure. Was there anyone, or any characters, you looked at as an inspiration for bringing this complex and layered character to life?
Firstly, I resent the question! I’d describe it as wrestling heroically with the potential loss of everything he is and has and the future of his entire family and hiding it as best he can for as long as he can. No crumbling in sight! The discerning viewer, though, who’s privy to all his secrets, is able to chart his descent into what might be called–given the existential themes of this third season–the collapse of self. Or going bonkers. Either way, it’s some pretty existential pressure.
Both yours and Parker Posey’s character have some pretty intense Southern drawls. What sort of accent work did you have to do for your portrayal in The White Lotus? What was the intention behind these intense accents?
Timothy’s not just from Durham, North Carolina, he is Durham, North Carolina personified. His grandfather was the governor and his family have been grandees there since the first settlers. I wanted to reflect that and be specific about his accent and its idiosyncratic history. What’s strange and interesting about Durham is that it has many of the typical southern sounds, but a short vowel and a “diphthong” (combined vowel) that are completely identical to upper-class English. It’s a linguistic anomaly and quite jarring the first time you hear it. I prepped with the amazing Liz Himmelstein, one of the top dialect coaches in the world, and I also had a perfect role model–a local old money politician–in my headphones every day. Parker’s from the South anyway and her character didn’t necessarily have to come from Durham, so she developed her own drug-addled drawl that had us in stitches a lot of the time.
Speaking of Parker Posey, what was it like getting to work alongside her?
It’s strange, but Timothy and Victoria don’t really connect. When we first arrive, she’s so out of her head on Lorazepam that the whole family essentially ignores her and then, as the pressure mounts to bursting point inside my head, I’m not really hearing or listening to her or anyone. So, although Jason and Parker were around the set together and have multiple scenes, since acting is about listening and interacting…it’s almost as if we never met professionally.
Saxon–played by Patrick Schwarzenegger–is identifiably one of the most problematic characters right off the bat, and seems to have a complicated relationship with himself and–in particular–his father, Timothy. How did you understand this dynamic when initially reading the script, and how did you and Schwarzenegger work together to bring it to life?
My first month in Thailand I spent almost exclusively with Patrick, Sam Nivola, and Sarah Catherine Hook, who play my kids in the show. Because we took over the whole resort to film there, I was given an enormous villa to myself with a full-size pool and another, smaller-but-still-huge villa just to sleep in. It was ludicrously glamorous when showing off on FaceTime to family and friends back home, but could actually be very lonely. My kids came over all the time and we played cards, ate, watched movies and laughed like drains. Given Patrick’s heritage I’d expected some kind of Hollywood brat, but he was just a total sweetheart from the first second: grounded, kind to a fault and always game for anything – any day trip, restaurant, excursion, you name it, he’d just say yes. By the time we were filming, we all liked and trusted each other so much that we wanted to give each other the space to try any and everything on camera. That’s extremely rare because acting can often also be quite competitive and not in a healthy way. Patrick and I pushed and pulled at Mike’s incredibly rich text to find as many of the colours of the fucked-up dynamic as we could. They love each other, whatever that means, and Saxon strains for his dad’s approval at every turn, but that desperation is transparent and, secretly, to Timothy, a little repulsive. Possibly Saxon senses some of that and his brashness, his overconfidence, his attempts to dominate in other areas of life–like sex–are compensation for the insecurity born of permanently living in his father’s shadow. No idea if the audience senses all that, but we tried to, at least.
What was it like filming in Thailand? Did you get a chance to do any sightseeing?
Hot. Fucking hot. Stupidly, skin-crispingly, lung-burstingly, tooth-meltingly hot. And the air was wet. Hot wet. If you’re on holiday, you might slather yourself in sunscreen, tan a little by the pool, sip something with an umbrella in it that makes the horizon a little wavier than normal, jump in the sea and then retire to some powerful air conditioning. That wasn’t our experience. We couldn’t tan and were covered in makeup and inappropriate clothes. We’d shoot in a villa with dozens of people, some very bright lights, doors closed, air conditioning off for sound and sweat would start to fill your socks and underwear like someone had stuck a hose down your pants. It got pretty gamey. Some actors had to cover their bodies in constantly refilled ice packs, the rest of us tried to butch it out by looking at the crew and reminding ourselves of the fact we at least got days and weeks off sometimes – they were there all day, every day, for the whole seven months and had no air conditioned rooms or ice packs to ease the burden. Still, it was insanely hot. Like sucking on a hairdryer in a sauna. Did I mention that?
My wife and I did travel around Thailand and were enormously relieved to get away from the five-star gilded pressure cooker cage that we all lived in for seven months on top of each other. We stayed in hostels in the jungle, went to villages where tourists had never been, visited temples and ate at the night markets with the locals. It was interesting and heartwarming to find out that the kindness of the well trained staff in the luxury resorts was actually a reflection of the national character and not a result of hospitality training. It’s a generalization but one that we found to be generally true, that Thai people are inclined to be non-confrontational and to give status in a genuinely generous and humble way. So alien to the way that people in London and New York–the two cities I know well–interact with each other. So beautiful. We were also haunted by the poverty and the things that people do to escape it. I’d urge anyone who goes to make a donation to one of the amazing charities doing great work around the loss and exploitation of childhood. It makes you feel a little less guilty as a tourist.
Did you learn anything from working with White Lotus creator Mike White?
That as well as being a sensational writer, which I knew, he’s a generous and relentlessly inventive director–he’d shriek with demonic laughter from behind the monitor if he thought you’d done something shriekably-good and then shout out some hilarious or bizarre or inexplicable suggestion for what to do or say next to take it further and you’d just have to fold it in to the scene somehow. When he cut, as part of his process for giving notes, he’d wander near you and then start acting the scene to himself. All the parts. You’d watch like a hawk, because another thing I learned is that he’s a better actor than me and would have played Tim far better than I ever could. Luckily, he wasn’t available and I was cheaper.
If you could play any other character from any season of The White Lotus, who would it be?
Armand from Season One was my kind of party animal. I think we’d have had fun. Fully clothed fun, that is. As long as we kept away from suitcases.
What was the most challenging aspect of filming The White Lotus?
Being away for seven months with–and I know some people are going to swallow just a little bit of sick reading this–too much time off! All the cast, crew and staff were staying and eating and resting and playing and fighting and drinking and crying and kissing and lying and laughing right in each other’s faces for breakfast, lunch, and supper every day, a long way from home and family and old friends and, frankly, adult supervision. The work was easy, the life was hard. Sometimes.
Without giving too much away, what do you hope audiences learn from the Ratliff family, particularly Timothy?
Nothing. Mike’s not in it to educate, he’s there to illuminate the human condition in ways that are entertaining and profound. And, of course, we all like to see very rich people suffering richly! Tim’s journey is epic, a Greek tragedy almost, and to experience it is cathartic, hopefully. I suffer so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.
