Making a statement. The White Lotus drew viewers in with surprising plot twists and some very NSFW sex scenes.
The HBO series, which debuted in July 2021, focuses on the guests and employees at a fictional resort that go through personal ups and downs while on vacation. The anthology series is also known for a mysterious death — or two — that fans have to wait to see uncovered.
During season 2, viewers were shocked when Harper (Aubrey Plaza) accidentally snuck a peek at Cameron (Theo James) while he undressed. Although the moment wasn’t a sex scene, the actor later opened up about bringing the intimate power play to life.
“The truth of it was you go into these things and you have a conversation with the director and the producers, and they go, ‘OK, for this, we’re going to use a prosthetic, we’re gonna use something,’” James explained during a December 2022 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon about the scene that made headlines. “It’s a pee-pee prosthetic.”
The Divergent star hoped the prosthetic wouldn’t be too “distracting” for the audience. “He needs to be [a] regular Joe because the scene’s not about the pee-pee, it’s about power play in sex [and] whether he did it deliberately or whether it was an accident,” he said.
At the time, James joked about the final product, adding, “I mean, it’s bigger than that. It’s like she stole it off a donkey in the field. The thing is ginormous.”
Creator Mike White, meanwhile, recalled the trepidation he faced when it came to directing sex scenes.
“I’m very timid about asking people to undress and get into sexual situations. It’s not my wheelhouse. There were definitely times on this shoot that I was like, what have I got myself into? My threshold for awkwardness is very low,” the writer detailed to NPR in November 2022. “The actors are much more confident and uninhibited than I am. That was new terrain for me. It just felt like it was important because it really is baked into the narrative.”
White also weighed in on fan reactions to the steamy story lines. “It’s funny, though, how now that the show is airing, how much you realize a graphic sex scene or a sex scene that kind of is titillating for various reasons, does just spike and generate an interest in the populace, for better or worse,” he shared.
Scroll down for the White Lotus cast’s most candid quotes about creating those provocative moments: