Natasha Rothwell is returning to The White Lotus universe and is teasing Season 3 filming in Thailand.
The How to Die Alone star is returning to the HBO series to reprise her role of spa manager Belinda.
“It was wonderful being in Thailand. I was there for five months,” Rothwell said on Sirius XM’s The Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham of filming the new season.
Rothwell noted that while filming the new season of The White Lotus, she was “finishing up editing the final episode of How to Die Alone from Koh Samui.
“It was a feat for sure. But I have amazing assistants that helped me coordinate remote editing,” she added. “It’s such a beautiful country. And Mike has said in the press that the season is focusing on spirituality and exploration of that, and Belinda being in the massage arts.”
Rothwell said that she feels her healing energy is Belinda’s connection to Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya in the first season, adding, “I’m really excited for audiences to be on that journey with her in season three.”
Filming in Thailand was a different experience for Rothwell as the first season of The White Lotus was filmed during the heavy protocols around Covid.
“Our key cards worked one way because they wanted to know who was leaving. It was a five-star prison, but I loved it,” she said. “But it was so different this time because the first time we were in basically one location for the entirety of the shooting. And we have the freedom to be shooting on location all over the place over Thailand.
She continued, “So it was really cool to be able to have that flexibility. And also, there was such a, this show was quite humble season one, you know like we didn’t know what it was gonna be. It wasn’t The White Lotus. It was just this really cool opportunity to work with one of my idols, Mike White.{
Rothwell said she always knew The White Lotus was special but “didn’t know that it would lead to an Emmy nomination for sure. Like I was fully gagged. I was just like, ‘Oh, this is wild.’”
“And it was such an amazing opportunity too, I think, for audiences to understand that I can do drama and I can do comedy, I can do a hybrid and have that nuance,” she said. “So it did a lot for me personally and professionally, but I think the season one was such a bubble in this special thing. And so to see what Mike has done with the series, it’s incredible. And this final season, it’s bigger. It’s more insane. I personally, and again, I’m biased, but I think it’s the best one yet.”
About filming with the new cast of the series that includes Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, and Parker Posey, Rothwell said she “was so nervous” at first “because all of the people on this season ar like hashtag goals.”
“And so I was so nervous to meet them. But what was funny, we had this big cast dinner day one, and they were all nervous to meet me because I had done season one,” she continued. “And so I was like, the status shifted in that moment. I was like, ‘We are peers now. I can now invite you out for beers, because I feel like we’re peers now.”
“But everyone was so wonderful. I mean, Michelle Monaghan, I mean, the list goes on and on and Parker’s just a delight. I mean, she’s just a vision and just being able to meet and hang out with them was my favorite. You know, like after we’d wrap, it would just be like, ‘Okay, meet you at the hotel bar.’ ‘Alright.’ And we’d go down and, you know, I’d just ask stories about, you know, all of their experiences and just really connect with them as people and not just, you know, being a fan.”
