‘White Lotus’ Casting Director On Landing Will Sharpe At The Last Minute – Deadline

Editor’s note: The following interviews were done outside of the FYC event series, as there was no panel or screening.

When it comes to assembling the quintessential ensemble cast for a series, it’s an art, not a science; an organic melding of faces and emotional forces. No more was this important than in the high stakes second season of HBO’s limited series White Lotus in which we’re pulled into the posh, sexy allure of those upper-class denizens on vacation only to relish in their deceitful sides and hijinks, warts and all. The limited series not only propelled fresh faces to the forefront such as Natasha Rothwell in season one, whose Hawaiian White Lotus resort spa manager is returning for the Eastern religion and spirituality set season 3, but it’s also shown a fresh, dynamic range of actors we’ve seen previously, i.e. Jennifer Coolidge and Alexandra Daddario among several others.

White Lotus’ casting director Meredith Tucker, who won a Limited Series Casting Primetime Emmy for season one on the Mike White created show, tells us in an interview for the Deadline FYC House + HBO Max event series that when it comes to putting together the right cast “it’s dealt with role by role” with the “specificity of the relationships always coming into play”.

This entails synching ages and likenesses for those characters who are connected to each other, i.e creating a believable age disparity between the grandfather-father-son Di Grasso family trio played respectively by F. Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli and Adam DiMarco.

However, one of the more challenging roles for Tucker to cast was the role of Ethan Spiller, the earnest, enigmatic rich tech husband to Aubrey Plaza’s slippery Harper. White had originally written the role of Harper with Plaza in mind.

“That was the last part we ended up casting, and we were having a little trouble figuring that role out,” Tucker says. “It was really a hard role because it’s sort of a slow burn.” The part went to UK-based Will Sharpe, who has recently been blazing a trail as a writer and director on the HBO series Landscapers, and the British show Flowers. His most recent acting roles were in the Netflix series, Giri/Haji, and the BBC 2018-2019 series, Defending the Guilty as a barrister, parts which “could not be more different” than the introverted Ethan per Tucker and showed off Sharpe’s more extroverted, comedic sides.

Tucker came across Sharpe while going through IMDB and UTA’s client list. She had watched Landscapers and thought Sharpe was the right age for the role. It was key to match the proper age to Theo James’ privileged Cameron Sullivan; he and Ethan having been college roommates. Tucker immediately phoned White Lotus EP David Bernad, who coincidentally was also thinking of Sharpe.

Why Sharpe worked was “you’d buy him as a tech guy. There was something very cerebral and could see that he and Aubrey made sense as a couple,” Tucker explains. She could see from Sharpe’s demo reel of Giri/Haji and Defending the Guilty a chameleon sensibility, something the part of Ethan required.

“There’s a repressiveness to him, but you need to see him lash out,” Tucker explains, “We felt that he could be able to do that just from the other material that he had shown.”

Sharpe received the request to submit a tape for White Lotus. “I was so excited to get the request, but as I was taping it, I didn’t really think anything would come of it,” he tells us. He ultimately read for the role on zoom with Tucker and Bernad.

“It sort of felt very surreal to all of a sudden be in Sicily playing this part,” adds Sharpe who was stoked to play the nuances of a “morally gray character”.

“He’s neither sexy sweet nor an out-and-out baddie,” the actor explains.

White Lotus season 2 begins with a floating body in the Sicilian waters, and we don’t know who died, or who was murdered. Frictions ultimately heat up between Cameron and Ethan, as the latter suspects the former of sleeping with Harper. Ethan ultimately bursts out at Cameron. Is Ethan bound to kill his old friend? Cameron no doubt envies Ethan’s success in tech.

On set Sharpe spoke with White about how mysterious Ethan should be. “He wanted the audience to wonder if Ethan is going to end up killing someone, and whether this nice guy thing is a misdirect. His sort of more problematic male behavior starts to bubble through.”

Sharpe was mindful that Ethan carried “the potential for real darkness, but also marrying that with the reality of the story, which is really the story of somebody who’s terrified about the stage of his marriage and he’s trying to confront that.”

The actor adds, “he’s worried about who he’s maybe becoming: He’s only recently made all this money and he finds himself sort of on vacation by mistake.”

The ennui ridden Ethan-Harper encounter the sexually free, no-rules-abiding Cameron and Daphne Sullivan (Meghann Fahy) “a very different couple who bring all these things to the surface” says Sharpe, “So, he’s questioning who he is and his behaviors shift in the last couple of episodes; it’s like he’s almost surrendering to the reality that he has to play the game by these different rules.”

In regards to the backstory of what was wrong in the house of Harper and Ethan, White told Plaza and Sharpe that the couples’ downfall was in that “they had been together for a long time; that was what was creating the problem; an atrophy set in because of the amount of time, and that’s what he thought would be relatable.”

Other intriguing takeaways from the casting process of White Lotus Season 2:

— Fahy had originally read for the role of Daddario’s Rachel Patton in season one. She didn’t get the part, but was promptly considered for the role of Daphne. “She was perfect for Daphne. There’s a sunniness to her, there’s a brightness to her versus Rachel who was a bit depressive,” Tucker tells us.

— Theo James landing Cameron: “Theo was so successful in that he is so charming and that is what we needed in that character…the guy (Cameron) is reprehensible, but there’s no interest in hating a character immediately. You have to have some sort of investment in everyone. The charm allowed him to behave so abominably,” says Tucker.

— Daisy Jones & The Six‘s Sam Claflin was considered for the part of Cameron, but like most casting goes for projects in Hollywood, the actor wasn’t available.

— Haley Lu Richardson landing the role of Portia, the assistant to Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya. Portia hooks DiMarco’s Albie Di Grasso and breaks his heart when she easily falls for the beefcake Jack (Leo Woodall) — who winds up being a whole other potentially dangerous headache for her. Tucker was a fan of Richardson’s having saw her in the movie Support the Girls. “There’s an openness to her in that part” says Tucker about Richardson as Portia, “and yet you still rooted for her.” Also, it was easy to buy Richardson as playing an outsider to the elites at the hotel, and as a young woman who drifts from Albie to another outsider, Jack.

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