'White Lotus' actor Jason Isaacs calls Indian trip ‘transformative’, highlights 'wealth gap'

WHITE LOTUS actor Jason Isaacs recalled his memories of filming the 2018 movie Hotel Mumbai in India, where he said the wealth gap between the rich and the poor made him reflect on what material possessions mean.

In an interview, Isaacs described that trip as “quite transformative”.

“I think about transformation a lot because I’m older... And I think probably the first time I really thought a lot about it was when I worked in India. Well, they made a film called Hotel Mumbai,” he said, of the film based on the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

“We travelled around India a lot and we saw the highs and the lows and the massive wealth gap there. It does make you reflect on what material possessions mean... It’s something that I think about all the time.”

The White Lotus focuses on a group of tourists and how their lives change during the course of an ultra-luxury vacation, and Isaacs said he had a similar experience in Thailand where the third season of the HBO show is set.

Isaacs said of his India visit, “I made some friends, but also got to see a country where people live very differently with massive disparity. We’re actors, we’re endlessly curious about who people are, how they are, and choices they make. And, also, for me, different cultures, different politics, different attitudes to life and death... So, it was a very three-dimensional experience.”

The White Lotus is created by Mike White. Each season revolves around the dynamics between rich guests and employees of a fictional resort chain, called White Lotus. The first season was set in Hawaii and the second was shot in Sicily.

Isaacs plays the role of Timothy Ratliff, a US-based financier, who visits the resort with his family – wife Victoria (Parker Posey), sons Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Lochlan (Sam Nivola) and daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook). While on vacation, his character finds out that his business is in trouble.

Isaacs, 61, said, “Mike chose Thailand for a reason because people go there for a spiritual odyssey as well as for all the normally entertaining things. He wanted to make the series have more resonance and he achieved it in spades. I had some big acting to do. There’s some extreme emotions. ...this series has questions of identity and what is the self.”