White Lotus creator Mike White revealed that he cut a sex scene where Piper loses her virginity to Belinda’s son Zion from the season three finale due to the episode’s length.
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for the April 6 finale of The White Lotus.
What happens at the White Lotus resort doesn’t always stay at the White Lotus resort.
In fact, White Lotus creator Mike White revealed that he wound up cutting a sex scene where Piper (played by Sarah Catherine Hook) lost her virginity to Zion (Nicholas Duvernay) from the HBO Max series’ season three finale, which aired on April 6.
And the reason the pair’s rendezvous didn’t make it into the final episode wasn’t because the writer was opposed to the idea of Piper—who spent most of the third installment trying to convince her parents Timothy (Jason Isaacs) and Victoria (Parker Posey) to let her join a Buddhist monastery—doing the deed with the son of masseuse Belinda (Natasha Rothwell).
As Mike—who also directed all of the show’s episodes—noted, the sex scene’s removal was “very disappointing.”
“It was just one of these things where it’s an hour and a half already,” he explained on the April 7 episode of The White Lotus Official Podcast, “and it would have added, like, 10 minutes to the thing.”
Plus, the light-hearted feel of the moment was too different from the tone surrounding the narrative arc of Piper’s dad, who nearly goes through with one of his murder-suicide ideations in the finale.
“It had a little bit of a romantic rom-com vibe,” Mike continued, “in the middle of [Timothy] trying to kill the family with the pong pong fruits.”
As for why Piper losing her virginity was written into the show in the first place? Mike wanted to call back to an earlier conversation she had with her older brother Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger). In a heated sibling exchange during episode one, Saxon accuses his younger sister of being a virgin, and she doesn’t outright deny it.
In the last episode, Mike thought it would be fitting if she made another confession in addition to being displeased with her one-night stay at the monastery.
“She’s like, ‘It’s true, Saxon’s right about this one thing, I need to get this over with,’” he recounted of the deleted scene. “After she leaves the monastery, she’s just like, ‘I need to have sex.’”
For more on the stars behind season three of the White Lotus, keep reading…
Lalisa Manobal
How you like that? The singer known mononymously as Lisa went from being a rockstar on world stages as part of K-pop group Blackpink—alongside Jisoo, Jennie and Rosé—to donning the White Lotus staff uniform for her big debut as Mook.
Jason Isaacs
Looks like Lucius Malfoy missed the train to Hogwarts and instead landed at The White Lotus. That’s right: He may look different without the luscious blond hair, but the Harry Potter star is returning to the screen as another uppity father figure, playing Timothy Ratliff, described as a “wealthy businessman vacationing with his wife and three children.”
Isaacs has also made more recent appearances on TV shows like Robot Chicken, The Great and Sex Education (alongside his White Lotus costar Aimee Lou Wood.)
Parker Posey
Don’t scream when you see it, but Posey—who plays Timothy’s wife Victoria Ratliff—may look familiar from her movies Superman Returns, Blade: Trinity, Scream 3 and Dazed and Confused. She’s also had brief stints on such TV shows as Parks and Recreation, New Girl, Portlandia and Search Party.
But the real rom-com fans will know her from the 1998 classic You’ve Got Mail, in which she played Joe Fox’s (Tom Hanks) girlfriend Patricia Eden.
Patrick Schwarzenegger
While you may know him best from family photos as the son of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, he has already made a name for himself acting in Gen V, The Terminal List and The Staircase before playing Saxon Ratliff in season three.
Sarah Catherine Hook
Prior to taking on the part of the Ratliffs’ daughter Piper, Hook got her feet wet in the horror and fantasy genres, portraying Debbie Glatzel in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Juliette Fairmont in First Kill and Elena Milak in Monsterland.
You may also know her from the 2024 Cruel Intentions remake as Caroline Merteuil or from the Ryan Murphy cinematic universe, in which she played Catherine Allday Davis in Impeachment: American Crime Story about the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Sam Nivola
Nivola—who is dating Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann‘s daughter Iris Apatow—rounds out the Ratliff family as young Lochlan. But before hitting the shores of Thailand, he was in another show about a rich family at the beach: The Perfect Couple, playing Will Winbury, the son of Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber‘s Greer and Tag Winbury. He even costarred on the Netflix drama with White Lotus alum Meghann Fahy, who appeared as Daphne Sullivan on season two of the HBO show before playing Merritt Monaco on The Perfect Couple.
Nivola has also acted in White Noise with Adam Driver, Maestro with Bradley Cooper and With/In with Anne Hathaway.
Natasha Rothwell
Of course, White Lotus fans will recognize Rothwell from season one, in which she played spa guru Belinda in Maui. Not only is she reprising the part for season three, but the actress has also graced the screen in Insecure, Wonka, A Year and Change and Love, Simon. Plus, she lent her comedy chops to Saturday Night Live as a writer from 2014 to 2015.
Leslie Bibb
The Iron Man alum is assembling to play Kate in The White Lotus after portraying Christine Everhart in the Marvel franchise. More recently, she starred in Palm Royale as Dinah Donahue and Jupiter’s Legacy as Grace Kennedy-Sampson.
Carrie Coon
The Gilded Age star—who may also look familiar from The Sinner, Fargo and The Leftovers—steps into the role of Laurie, who joins pals Kate and Jaclyn for a girls’ trip in Thailand this season.
Michelle Monaghan
While Monaghan plays TV star Jaclyn on The White Lotus, she’s also a TV star IRL, having been on True Detective, Bad Monkey, Messiah and The Path. On the big screen, she’s starred as Julia in Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Angie Genaro in Gone Baby Gone.
Walton Goggins
You’ll feel justified in knowing that it’s not all in your head—Goggins really does look familiar. In addition to starring in two Quentin Tarantino movies (playing Billy Crash in Django Unchained and Sheriff Chris Mannix in The Hateful Eight), he is also known for being Boyd Crowder in Justified from 2010 to 2015.
Aimee Lou Wood
The English actress joins the cast in season three as free-spirited Chelsea, who has an age-gap romance with Goggins’ character Rick Hatchett. Yet, she is best known for her role as Aimee Gibbs on Netflix’s Sex Education and also appeared in Seize Them! and Daddy Issues.
Lek Patravadi
Tayme Thapthimthong
Christian Friedel
If 13 minutes wasn’t enough time to figure out where you recognize the German actor, allow us to refresh your memory. He played Rudolf Höss in The Zone of Interest, Reinhold Gräf in Babylon Berlin and Georg Elser in 13 Minutes.
Source: www.eonline.com