'The White Lotus' actress says character was originally supposed to have non-binary child
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By Jeffrey Clark
Published March 31, 2025
Actress Carrie Coon revealed that her character in the popular HBO show "The White Lotus" was supposed to reveal that she had a non-binary child in a deleted scene written before President Donald Trump won the 2024 election.
"You originally found out that her daughter was actually nonbinary, maybe trans, and going by they/them," Coon told Harper's Bazaar in an interview. "You see Laurie struggling to explain it to her friends, struggling to use they/them pronouns, struggling with the language, which was all interesting."
Her character's friend Kate, who is played by Leslie Bibb, revealed in the third episode of season three that she supported Trump in a scene that went viral online. Her longtime liberal best friends Laurie and Jaclyn, played by Michelle Monaghan, pushed Kate into admitting how she voted during a discussion about religion and politics in the show.
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Laurie and Jaclyn live in New York City and Los Angeles respectively, while Kate lives in Austin, a notoriously blue stronghold in the red state of Texas. Kate maintained that she was an independent but admitted at dinner that her husband, Dave, was a member of the Republican Party.
Coon explained in an interview that the deleted scene of Laurie explaining that her child is non-binary was an important part of her character development in the show and made her friend's Republican leanings even more significant.
"It was only a short scene, but for me, it did make the question of whether Kate voted for Trump so much more provocative and personally offensive to Laurie, considering who her child is in the world," Coon said.
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The actress also said that the potential inclusion of a non-binary character in the show's lore was taken out in part because of the Trump administration's transgender policies.
"The season was written before the election," Coon said. "And considering the way the Trump administration has weaponized the cultural war against transgender people even more since then, when the time came to cut the episode down, Mike [White] felt that the scene was so small and the topic so big that it wasn't the right way to engage in that conversation."
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The show was filmed a year ago while Trump was still campaigning for re-election. The satirical series helmed by Mike White is currently airing its third season. Print Close
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