Parker Posey reveals ‘The White Lotus' fans are making sure she's living a comfortable life

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'Thank you, darling! I dressed up for you! I got the flowers in the kitchen!' Parker Posey says, accepting a compliment on how fabulous she looks popping up on our Zoom interview from the Chateau Marmont, wearing her now signature pink glasses and a chic scarf. Although the certified Legend earned her first Emmy nomination last year for guesting on Prime Video's Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Posey considers this her first real awards season, and she's doing it right.
If you watched Season 3 of HBO's The White Lotus, you already know that Posey could do no wrong as Victoria Ratliff, the North Carolina matriarch whom show creator Mike White described to the actress as a younger version of Grey Gardens' eccentric Big Edie. Having grown up in Louisiana and Mississippi, Posey couldn't wait to choose her (much-imitated) Southern accent. "I love how funny it sounds. I love how there seems to be an emphasis on feeling but not actually what you're saying," she explains. She zeroed in on Victoria's lines about her country club life. "She's under this grip of achievements, and money, and what people should do and how they should live," Posey says. "I looked at her as someone who was programmed in this kind of male-dominated world. But underneath it all, there was someone lost and waiting to come out. That's why I like her [tsunami] dream so much [in Episode 3]. A character has a dream, then that gives such another dimension to her and what's going on with her."
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Here, Posey shares how she found inspiration for some of Victoria's most memorable moments — and which scenes fans won't let her forget.
Gold Derby: You've said that if Victoria hadn't been funny, she would have come across as a terrible person. Was that your biggest challenge, making her likable?
Parker Posey: Yeah, you're exactly right. You know, The White Lotus is already like a brand. So we know what kind of characters we're dealing with. We're dealing with the 1 percent, and then the hospitality industry in these hotels, right? Everyone likes a snob when you look at characters in movies and TV shows, like the person who's just obnoxious. So having a [slips into Victoria's drawl] snotty way of talking, it's really juicy. So I was happy to be able to deliver that. I mean, I hope it's OK. You know I wasn't always confident, in the beginning especially. But I love Evil Under the Sun and Murder on the Orient Express, and these characters, they're almost drawn, they're kind of animated. I remember being a little kid and watching these movies and looking forward to being a grown-up and acting this way. Maggie Smith, and who else was in Evil Under the Sun? Peter Ustinov. You know they had this style and this way of being that you knew they were acting and having fun as they were playing these people, you know, but they were very drawn. It was very archetypal. And so that was fun to enter into that story world of whodunit, you know, and just playing someone who you don't really know what she's capable of doing. Do you trust her? Is she trustworthy? Is she high on lorazepam? What's going on? So all that stuff was such good fun.
There's an arc with Victoria, from almost childlike to formidable: When she arrives at the White Lotus, I love how nervous she is when Pam (Morgana O'Reilly) brings up taking a test. And then cut to when she's off the lorazepam and she's the one, not husband Timothy (), who finds a way to stop Piper () from staying in Thailand. What was it like for you to play that change?
It was so fun to just play a full-on woman, you know. Like, when she's in a bad way and she needs to take to bed, she's gonna take to bed. And Timothy and the whole family is going to abide by that and take care of mom and worry about mom and hope she's OK. And then, like on a dime, she can drink a cup of coffee and get the show on the road and do some detective work. [Laughs] That kind of drama. She's just a drama queen.
Tell me about filming the scene in the finale when Piper reveals to Timothy and Victoria that she isn't staying in Thailand. It's so fun to watch you, as Victoria, figure out what Piper's really saying. You escalate Victoria's response to the hug. Was the thumbs up you give scripted or something that just came to you?
No, that was totally scripted. And that was such a beautiful day of work for Sarah Catherine. We shot a lot in a condensed amount of time, and we shot that, I think, within the first or second week. So I didn't know really what the path of Piper was. … It's so tragic in that scene, so much about not being able to escape your family and to accept the limits of what you are capable of doing. And so really what she's saying is, "I'll never be able to leave you." And it's that powerful mother and father that have their child going, "I gotta come back to you." I just thought it's just such great writing and such a great arc. But that was all Mike White. She hugs, and she's like [gives a thumbs up], "Got her!" [Laughs]
Jason told me how much he with a live audience and hearing people's reactions to certain scenes. Is there any particular scene you'd have loved to hear the response to?
I haven't watched the show yet, and I wasn't there for the finale [screening] because I was working. But I talked to John Valerio, our editor, and I said, "Can you remind me of the piña colada scene? Because all I remember is, it was at like 4 o'clock in the morning. We improvised a lot of different bits, right? We were talking about desserts?" He's like, "That's not in it." He said in the editing of that scene, what was fun is the stuff that was added, just the energy of the scene. Mike would throw out funny lines, like ["Is that it, Tim? Have you ever heard of wine?"]. To be able to work with an ensemble, and to be able to build moments along with the director, who's written the story and knows it so well, it's like all these characters coming to life right in front of his eyes. It's such a remarkable thing.
Every actor I've spoken to this awards season has talked about how much they love that on-set collaboration. It made me wonder about a line in Episode 2, when Victoria finds out that Jaclyn () is a famous actress and says, "Actresses are all basically prostitutes… if they're lucky." The laughter from your costars seemed genuine. Was that scripted or something thrown in?
"If they're lucky" was thrown in, yeah. And that was my first day of work. Mike is so funny, because you can just hear him cackling. Has anyone done his cackle for you?
Patrick (Schwarzenegger) has.
It's like [shrieks twice].
Another scene that I thought might also have been enhanced by you was the house party in Episode 7 when Victoria is talking to the Thai beauty (played by Praya Lundberg), asking why she's with her older boyfriend, and telling her to come to North Carolina: "Are you scared of him? I could get you out of this."
Praya was a really lovely person. We just connected on set [filming an earlier scene], and I adored her. And I told Mike. I was like, "I love Praya. Can we have a scene with her?" And he thought about it. And then he was like, "I know what I wanna do. I'm gonna bring her into the party," to the scenes that you're talking about. But that [dialogue] was all Mike. …
We spent almost seven months [in Thailand], and when I went back to the premiere, people there were like, "Welcome home." Like, it's so hospitable, and the people are so lovely and kind. So I still feel like I'll be returning there soon, even though I'm not. What was cool about the experience was there was the hotel working next to us, and the Butlers.
Did I read that you and Natasha Rothwell took the butlers out to dinner?
God, that was such a perfect night. That was such a perfect night! Yes, we took our butlers at the Four Seasons. [Names them.] We bonded with them. They were just such cool women, you know. And when they knew that I like to just hang out — we were staying there for like two months — I felt like I got to know them a little bit, and to know just the kind of people that they are. And I just love them. "You know Khun Parker, you don't need a man if they don't enhance your life. And if they don't enhance your life, why…." [Laughs] They were, like, giving advice. … One of my favorite nights was going to set watching Lisa perform [as Mook]. And I watched Lisa dance, and it was so beautiful. The way that they just move, and that beauty, that's their culture. So I cried when I left Four Seasons, and I know how ridiculous that sounds. But I cried, like looking out of the van and waving goodbye to them.
We were like, "We'll be back in like six months, five months," and when we came back. … Natasha, Michelle, and I took them all out to dinner. They were all obsessed with Lisa, and it just so happened that Lisa worked that day, and I called her assistant. I said, "Is there any way Lisa can stop by?" And she said, "Well, it just so happens that something's up with Lisa's leg and she's like a five-minute drive [away] getting a massage, and she can stop by on the way." And so we took these pictures of Lisa and the butlers. It's those moments that make it. They were just so happy.
Fabio Lovino/HBO
Jason told me that people now offer him piña coladas everywhere he goes. Is anything like that happening to you?
On Easter Island! I was shooting a movie with Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich on Easter Island, and you know it's the furthest place you can go in the furthest part of the world. The only people there are tourists, and it's just like this hotel we were all staying in. There was a homemade mimosa bar, and so it was like 10 o'clock in the morning, and this woman walks by and she says, 'I have some lorazepam if you need some,' and just walked away. [Laughs]
That will be happening for the rest of your life.
And then I went on a Delta flight, and the flight attendant asked what I wanted to drink, and I said, "I'll have a seltzer with some ice," and he says, "I just want to make sure you're living a comfortable life." "Oh, thank you. I'm very comfortable."
I did want to touch on that "I just don't think at this age I'm meant to live an uncomfortable life" scene. Did you know when filming it that fans would eventually be quoting it?
That moment, when she says, "I don't want to live an uncomfortable life, I don't have the will," that's when you don't really know what's gonna happen to Victoria, this being at the end of her rope and what she's been through. [With] those little lines, we get to bring in the history of person. I had the essential oils and the lotions, and you just see how spoiled she is. But also, you know she's broken. She's kind of a mess, and then on the other side, she gets it together, and she's able to, like, Sherlock Holmes this stuff and get her daughter back. I love Mike White and how he writes women! We're talking about a writer who writes great women, and they're alone. They stand alone in a man's world. I feel so lucky I got to play it.
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