White Lotus composer quits show amid ‘hysterical' tensions with production team

Independent

03-04-2025

The composer of The White Lotus theme song is leaving the hit HBO show citing long-standing friction with writer and director Mike White.
Chilean-Canadian musician Cristóbal Tapia de Veer composed the much-loved scores for the first and second seasons of the black comedy which earned him two Primetime Emmy awards.
However, following a lukewarm response to the theme for season three - which was a notable departure from the tune of the first two seasons - de Veer has announced that he won't be returning for season four.
Speaking to the New York Times the musician said: 'When [the season three theme] came out, I had TMZ calling me, even people from England and from France, because they wanted some kind of statement about the theme. People are furious about the change of the theme, and I thought that was interesting.'
The 51-year-old revealed that he had made a longer version of the song, which contained nods to the previous scores, that could have been used in the opening credits.
When the production team approved of this idea he revealed that: 'Mike [White] cut that – he wasn't happy about that.' He eventually chose to release the full version of the song, called 'Enlightenment', on YouTube.
Tapia de Veer also claimed that conversations with the show's producers could be 'hysterical' and that they repeatedly asked for music that was more experimental than what he wanted to produce.
'I feel like this was, you know, a rock 'n' roll band story,' he said. 'I was like, OK, this is like a rock band I've been in before where the guitar player doesn't understand the singer at all.'
Tapia de Veer claimed that his conflicts with White dated back to the first season when there were tensions over the music despite its award's success.
'Maybe I was being unprofessional, and for sure Mike feels that I was always unprofessional to him because I didn't give him what he wanted. But what I gave him did this, you know — did those Emmys, people going crazy,' he said in the interview.
Ultimately Tapia de Veer said it was 'worth all the tension and almost forcing the music into the show, in a way, because I didn't have that many allies in there'.
The Independent has contacted Mike White's representatives for comment.
It comes after season three star Jason Isaacs that friendships were both 'made' and 'lost' on the set of the show.
Isaacs described the experience of filming the latest instalment as 'a cross between summer camp and Lord of the Flies but in a gilded cage'.
The series was filmed in Thailand over the course of seven months, with the cast and crew staying at the Four Seasons Hotel in Koh Samui, which doubles up as the hotel on screen.
In an interview with Vulture, Isaacs said that despite the stunning backdrop, filming the show 'wasn't a holiday'.