‘The White Lotus’: Mike White responds to ‘contemptuous’ composer who quit and all the other backstage drama on the HBO hit
Amy Sussman/Getty Images and Kevin Winter/Getty Images
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_The White Lotus_ viewers are learning more about the sometimes shocking behind-the-scenes turmoil that occurred during filming last year in Thailand. Perhaps the biggest bombshell is that composer **Cristóbal Tapia de Veer** , who won three Emmys for _The White Lotus_ , has announced he's quitting the show after countless arguments with three-time Emmy-winning producer, writer, and director **Mike White**. Now, White has responded.
There are also new revelations about the challenges of the months-long shoot from actors **Jason Isaacs** and **Aimee Lou Wood** that causing quite a stir. As Isaacs put it, "There’s an off-screen _White Lotus_ as well, with fewer deaths but just as much drama."
Read on for the latest details.
## The war over the score
"We had our last fight forever," de Veer said of White to _The New York Times_. "I announced to the [editorial] team a few months ago that I was not coming back, that I was leaving," he said. Apparently, the composer had been feuding with the showrunner since Season 1 in Maui, when White didn't appreciate the "Hawaiian Hitchcock" theme song (de Veer refers to the sound as _ooh-loo-loo-loos_). Side note: de Veer won an Emmy Award for composing the original main titles, plus two additional trophies for Best Music Composition for Season 1 (as a limited series) and Season 2 (as a drama series).
Despite White's apparent dissatisfaction, de Veer kept working. "I just stuck to what I was doing. And when I was giving versions, it was still the same thing: There were still crazy people and screaming and stuff like that. From there, it became this weird relationship of, 'How do I pass all this weird music into the show?'"
For Season 3, the theme song was completely revamped (watch above), and fans were initially confused. "I don’t think everybody was really aware of how attached people were to the _ooh-loo-loo-loos_ ," de Veer said. "People are furious about the change of the theme, and I thought that was interesting. I texted [a different producer] and I told him that it would be great to, at some point, give [fans] the longer version with the _ooh-loo-loo-loos_ because people will explode if they realize that it was going there anyway. He thought it was a good idea. But then Mike cut that — he wasn’t happy about that. At that point, we already had our last fight forever, I think. So he was just saying 'no' to anything."
De Veer conceded, "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 — [won] those Emmys, people going crazy [for the show] … That is the main thing that I’m most happy about — 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. … This was a good struggle."
After the finale aired on April 6, White spoke with **Howard Stern** on April 8, giving his side of the story.
"I honestly don’t know what happened, except now I’m reading his interviews because he decides to do some PR campaign about him leaving the show," White told the SiriusXM host. “I don’t think he respected me. He wants people to know that he’s edgy and dark and I’m, I don’t know, like I watch reality TV. We never really even fought. He says we feuded. I don’t think I ever had a fight with him — except for maybe some emails. It was basically me giving him notes. I don’t think he liked to go through the process of getting notes from me, or wanting revisions, because he didn’t respect me. I knew he wasn’t a team player and that he wanted to do it his way. I was thrown that he would go to _The New York Times_ to shit on me and the show three days before the finale. It was kind of a bitch move. By the time the third season came around, he’d won Emmys and he had his song go viral, he didn’t want to go through the process with me, he didn’t want to go to sessions. He would always look at me with this contemptuous smirk on his face like he thought I was a chimp or something ... he’s definitely making a big deal out of a creative difference. He is very talented. [But] I’ve never kissed somebody’s ass so hard to just get him to — to lead that horse to water. Have fun with whatever you’re doing next."
In Gold Derby's 2023 interview with de Veer (watch above), there was no tension as he recalled that White wanted the background music "to feel like mice" for the second season in Italy. So, the composer created a score full of "playfulness" that felt "lighthearted." He noted, "[White] wanted something different, and he spoke to me about feeling like these people are mice going around, which somehow dictated how I was even playing the keyboard, because I did some piano music that feels like a musical box or something that you play with just two fingers."
## The lost friendships
Isaacs plays wealthy investor Timothy Ratliff, who discovers while vacationing in Thailand that his family's wealth is gone due to illegal activity. Speaking to Vulture, Isaac described the experience of filming over seven months to be "a cross between summer camp and _Lord of the Flies_ but in a gilded cage." The cast and crew stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel in Koh Samui (the same location that doubles as the titular resort), but "it wasn't a holiday," the English actor added.
"Some people got very close — there were friendships that were made and friendships that were lost," Isaacs revealed. "All the things you would imagine with a group of people unanchored from their home lives on the other side of the world, in the intense pressure cooker of the working environment, with eye-melting heat and insects and late nights. They say in the show, 'What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand,' but there’s an off-screen _White Lotus_ as well, with fewer deaths but just as much drama."
Isaacs' character Timothy spends much of his time with wife Victoria (**Parker Posey**), elder son Saxon (**Patrick Schwarzenegger**), daughter Piper (**Sarah Catherine Hook**), and younger son Lochlan (**Sam Nivola**). When asked for clarification about whom he was referring to, the actor divulged, "I became very close to some people and less close to others, but we still all had that experience together, and there’s a certain level of discretion required."
## The filming conditions
Wood was vocal about the filming conditions in Thailand, telling _The Guardian_ that the circumstances were "quite extreme." The English actress added, "I don’t know whether I’d describe it as fun. There were fun moments. It was more like … amazing. In the true sense, I was amazed by what was happening. How am I in Thailand? Living in a hotel, that we also film in? It was like a social experiment ... in a way I will never, ever forget. I will never have an experience like that again. It was so extreme. So the fun bits were unbelievable, so special. The ocean, the landscape, it was majestic. Mike is a genius. Everyone involved is amazing, it’s just the circumstances are quite extreme.”
While other actors got some time off, Wood's character Chelsea, the spiritual yoga teacher who's dating **Walton Goggins** ' revenge-minded Rick, was an integral part of multiple storylines so she always had to remain on set at the Four Seasons. "Some people were doing a lot of darting, going home a few times, because their schedule allowed it," she explained. "For some reason, my character, where I was in the story, meant I never had a big chunk of time [off]."
Due to the intensity of White's writing, "everyone always seems on the edge," Wood confessed. "One day, I was having my hair done and **Miia [Kovero** , the hair and makeup artist] was like, 'You need to go home. I don’t know who I’m talking to any more, Aimee or Chelsea.' I’d completely abstracted. Everyone becomes their character to an extent, but I didn’t even know who I was."
## The censored scene
When the third season of _The White Lotus_ premiered in India, streaming services in the country censored the opening action scene, reports _Variety_. The moment in question involves Zion (**Nicholas Duvernay**), who we later find out is the son of Belinda (**Natasha Rothwell**), cursing at the Buddha statue while gunfire is sounding out all around him. "Please let my mom be OK," Zion begs the statue before praying to Jesus. But when more gunshots occur, he screams, "What the f--k! I said, 'Don’t let anything happen to my mother, motherf--ker!'"
Viewers in India reported that the scene was censored by JioHotstar, the largest streaming service in India, to remove Zion's expletives toward the Buddha statue. Buddhism is one of the main religions in India, along with Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, and Jainism, so it's possible the streaming platform didn't feel comfortable depicting an American cursing at the religious figure. Interestingly enough, JioHotstar had no problems showing several sexual escapades from Season 3, including brothers Saxon and Lochlan engaging in drunken incest.
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_Originally published April 3; updated April 8 at 9:15 a.m._
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