Secrets are part of the game for anyone involved in Mike White’s “The White Lotus.” While each season has so far fixated on the mysterious, unidentified dead body at the beginning of every first episode, other major revelations have to be kept hush-hush. Natasha Rothwell, who plays an employee of the hotel chain in both season one and season three, knows the drill better than anyone. Not only did Rothwell get to return to “The White Lotus” for its escape to Thailand, but she got to send her beloved character Belinda off into a much more secure future. A secret worth waiting over a year to reveal to the world.
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If it wasn’t obvious already, major spoilers are ahead if you have not watched the current season.
Speaking to The Playlist earlier a few weeks ago, Rothwell reflected on Belinda’s arc, which put her in a dangerous position with Greg (Jon Gries), now going by Gary, whom she met during the show’s inaugural season set at the fictional White Lotus resort in Hawaii. Greg was part of a nefarious scheme that saw a mutual acquaintance, Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), perish at the end of season two. When Greg asks her to meet at his lavish home near the resort (a home he only has because of Tanya’s money), she reluctantly agrees, but brings her college-age son Zion (Nicholas Duvernay) along for support. She knows Greg wants to buy off her silence and isn’t sure she can go through with it. Zion dominates the negotiation with Belinda seemingly an afterthought, that is, until she has an emotional reaction to Greg’s initial low-ball offer and walks out of the room. Except, it was all part of her plan. She knew exactly what she was doing. And, much to his surprise, she gives instructions to Zion to up the offer to an incredible amount. It’s a side the audience has never seen from Belinda before, and it was a very welcome revelation.
“I pitched that moment to Mike,” Rothwell reveals. “We worked together on each of Belinda’s scenes, and I pitched ideas, and he’s just so collaborative, and I’m so grateful. And originally, that scene, Belinda didn’t say anything. She didn’t do anything. It was just Zion. He was just like, ‘I’ll handle this.’ And he steps in and saves his mom. And I told Mike about the scene. I was just like, it would be amazing to give Belinda some agency in this moment to see her, for once, not lean on Tanya to save her dreams, not lean on her son to save her ass in this moment, but to see her realize her own agency in this moment. What if she jumps into the negotiation? He’s like, ‘Ooh, no, this is interesting. Let me work on this.’ And he sent me pages afterwards, and it was the scene that we shot, and I was like, ‘This is so genius to show her playing chess while everyone’s playing checkers.’ And we see that she sees in that moment, and Jon plays it so expertly, we shot a lot of coverage of that scene. And I would watch him as Zion’s talking, and I see him realizing he’s against the ropes, and that’s when Belinda realizes, ‘Oh, I can actually get this money here. Let’s roll.’ So I don’t think that it was her doing something that is outside of her character. I think she decided to lean into that part of her that plays people. I mean, she works at the White Lotus in Maui. She’s playing these guests constantly. She’s pretending that She’s this magical negro that’s going to rub the sadness out of their bodies and she’s good at reading people. And so in this moment, we see her poker face really shine, and I’m just so grateful that Mike was able to take that note and make it even better than I could dream of.”
Over the course of our chat, Rothwell explains just how embedded the cast was in the shoot on a 24/7 basis, why Belinda can’t report who Gary truly is to her bosses, how soon White let her know she’d return, how often she gets recognized for her role in the “Sonic the Hedghog” franchise over “Lotus,” and – no exaggeration – much, much more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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The Playlist: There were rumors that Mike was going to bring somebody back, but nobody knew who it might be. When do you remember first hearing from him that it was going to be Belinda?
Natasha Rothwell: When Mike was shooting the Italy season, season two, he came in town for the Emmys. And if you recall, it was like Emmys Tetris, because it was COVID. So it was the Emmys for my season. But he was actually shooting season two, and we had grabbed dinner. He was just like, “I know I’m in the middle of season two, but I’m just thinking already about season three, and I might want to bring Belinda back. How do you feel?” And I was like, “Dude, I’d go to Target for you. Anything you want, I’ll do.” And I didn’t hang my hat on it because I’m a writer, and we share multiple hyphenates, Mike and I, being both actors, writers, and directors. And so I know nothing’s real until you put pen to paper. And so I told my team who got a little bit ahead of their skis, and I was like, “Guys, we don’t know what’s real until it’s real.” And then he got into the script, and he reached out, and he was like, “Belinda’s back.” And I was just like, “Let me make sure my passport’s up to date.”
When you finally got the scripts, what surprised you the most about the arc he had written for her?
I think what delighted me is so much of her inner life that I knew so intimately, and Mike and I knew intimately, season one was being expressed for other people to consume, for the audience to consume as well. So, that was really exciting to see so many colors on her. We have the comedy with the Monitor lizard, and we see the vulnerability of her having her one-night stand with Pornchai [Dom Hetrakul], and we see deep fear when she knows that Greg knows that she knows, and Mama Bear when her son lands. And so there are just all these beautiful colors that he painted her with this season that I was so excited by.
Did you realize when you read it that she would be the one character that viewers might want to root for the most?
I couldn’t even tell that season one, dude. I was floored season one by the response in that same vein, where people were so protective of her, and they were so connected with her. And to feel that this season, I was reminded again of how much people just love her, and in the way that I do, I would take a bullet for her. I protect her so much. And so to have people tweet at me and be on Instagram being like, “If Belinda dies, we ride at dawn,” and I was just like, “Me too.” I would ride at dawn as well.
I have to ask about that. Did you immediately go to the end of the season to see her fate, or did you ask Mike before you read it?
No, I got all the scripts, and I got them on a Wednesday, and I told him I wasn’t going to read them until Saturday because I wanted to binge-read them. And the moment I finished, I FaceTimed him, and he was in a scout van in Thailand, and he’s like, “What did you think?” I was like, “Oh my God.” And so we were able to just chop it up about the show, and I was just blown over by all of the storylines, and I was just like, “She lives!” I was so relieved. But yeah, I didn’t get any tips before going into the read about what happened to her. I wanted to feel it, like the audience would feel it.
I’ve talked to some of your co-stars, and I know that Mike, for lack of a better word, sort of overwrites. I was speaking to that Sarah, and she said she knew that not everything was going to get in because there was just no way. In that context, is the last shot of the season the same one that you remember in the script?
So, you’re right, he does, there’s like 30 minutes almost of every episode that hits the cutting room floor that he shoots. And I knew in the original script it was Belinda on the boat riding into the sunset. But again, Mike and I are very similar in that we both understand that once you get into the edit, all bets are off. And so in watching it, I just didn’t know if that would stay, and I was so relieved. The one thing that got cut from that moment there was an original line in the script where Belinda, as the boat is sort of going into the sunset, she just says, “There is a God.” And that got cut, but I was just like, “Oh, that was so good.” Just like her chasing doubt for the whole eight episodes to land on that confidence. But I understand why he did it. As a writer myself, I’m like, “That shot says enough.” You see that joy and that confirmation on her face. So yeah, it was really cool to see that stay. I’m so glad it did.
One of the other things that pops up in the final episode is when she, basically, in different words, says the same thing that…
Tanya…
Tanya had said to her in season one, explaining why she no longer wants to do the business. Do you remember realizing that while you read it?
I did, but it’s so funny, they feel like different scenes to me because I’m seeing them from Belinda’s perspective, and in season one, Tanya promised Belinda the world and took it away. In this season, Belinda didn’t promise Pornchai anything. She was just like, “I’ll think about it. Yeah, let’s talk.” It was more of the beauty of the juxtaposition of those moments, where, and this is the thing that Mike does brilliantly, they echo each other in that, “Oh yeah, it’s someone leaving and someone staying behind, and the person that’s being left behind is not happy.” But I think that the motivations are totally different. And I do feel that even in season one, Belinda is culpable for her pain because she outsourced her joy to Tanya. She was just like, “I’m putting all my hopes on this other person to make me happy.” And I don’t think Pornchai did that with Belinda. I think he’s just sad because he’s met a really great woman and they had a really great night, and he wanted to dream with her, not necessarily make her make his dreams come true. So, there are differences, but they’re so nuanced that I think so often people look at it and they’re like, “Oh yeah, it’s exactly like season one.” And I’m like on the surface, but if you dig deeper, it’s more elegant than that.
I see your point of view. It does make sense, and he’s from a much more genuine place than Tanya ever was. So, when Belinda realizes that Greg is living under this alias and clearly must be involved with Tanya’s death somehow, why is she not calling the American embassy? Why do you think she stays quiet for so long besides telling her son?
I think Belinda has a lot to lose, and I remember saying this in interview season one, so much of working in that resort, especially as someone in the service industry, is you can’t really speak truth to power. And Greg is so powerful in this moment, and she’s there on a work-study program. And so if she ruffles the feathers of Fabian, her manager, played by the amazing Christian Friedel – he’s so funny and amazing – if she rocks the boat, she could be sent back to Maui. There’s a lot for her to lose. And so I think in that moment, she’s looking for a co-conspirator. So, she’s going up to Fabian, being like, “You should call.” She’s trying to do the right thing while also covering her own ass. She has a job she has to keep, she has a mouth that she has to feed. Grad school to pay for. So, I see why she’s not just picking up the phone and calling the police, but she’s trying to do everything she can, but do that.
