Carrie Coon on the 'White Lotus' finale, commuting to Thailand and learning to say no

The third season of “The White Lotus” came to an explosive end Sunday night, finally answering viewer’s questions about who died and how.

Among the show’s many standout stars was New York City-based actress Carrie Coon. She played Laurie, a recently divorced corporate lawyer, on a girls' trip with two of her longtime girlfriends: Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), a Hollywood actress; and Kate (Leslie Bibb), a wealthy Texan.

As the season progressed, simmering tensions between the friends began to boil over. Meanwhile, their fellow hotel guests struggled with questions of morality, spirituality and vengeance.

Coon has already earned a fanbase for her roles in "The Leftovers" and "The Gilded Age," and social media was abuzz Monday with praise for her scenes in the finale.

She talked to WNYC’s Alison Stewart on Monday's episode of "All of It" about playing Laurie, commuting to Thailand, working with Mike White and more. Below is an edited version of their conversation.

Alison Stewart: Did you initially audition for Laurie?

Carrie Coon: Everybody auditions for Mike White.

Really?

Yes. He does not cast anyone without audition tapes.

Did you do it for Laurie specifically, or was it general?

I think my sides were Laurie heavy. I do think the sides were dummy sides, we call them, but I think they were geared toward one character or another. I think casting recognized that I was very much a Laurie. I know some actresses were then called back to read sides for other parts, but that did not occur with me. I was a Laurie from the jump.

What interested you about Laurie?

I knew that whatever Laurie went through – and I didn't see the scripts right away, of course – that it would be a psychologically interesting acting challenge because it's Mike White. I would have played anything to work with Mike White. That was my primary interest in doing the show.

What's so great about Mike White?

He's just been doing extraordinary work for a long time, and he's been doing risky, transgressive, morally complicated work for a long time. That's the work that interests me the most. I think being a human being is messy business. I think we're seeing that play out.

In the penultimate episode, Kate and Jaclyn tell Laurie that she is chronically disappointed. Do you think that's true about Laurie?

I think she has a negative bias, yes. I contend that way in my own life. "How are you?" "Oh, well, it's raining, and the kids got up at 5." Maybe it's a Midwestern thing. I don't know. It's like in order to entrench ourselves in our stoicism, we first have to list our obstacles.

I think the fact that her friends are speaking truth to that is what leads her on her escapade with Aleksei, whatever she's proving to herself or to them, which really ends up just reinforcing the idea that maybe she's not made great decisions.

When you think about these women going on vacation together, what is it that they have in common?

I think the thing they have in common the most is their shared history. They knew each other. Other than that, I think their lives have really diverged. Yet, I experienced the idea of how strong of a tether is history when your life starts to diverge from your friends. My life is wildly different from my life when I was growing up in Ohio and arguably more different than probably just about anyone I went to high school with. I'm a bit of a Jaclyn in my hometown. When I go back to my hometown, I'm Jaclyn.

I recognize how challenging it can be to maintain those old friendships, and yet making new ones isn't very easy, either. I do recognize in Mike White's interest a lot of conformity. You will see women geographically who look the same. You go to a yoga class in Tribeca. Everyone is dressed exactly the same. Everyone has the same sleek ponytail and a matching set and fancy shoes. It's just there's a lot of conformity. I think there's also a commentary on how much we're striving to be the same when, in fact, there are many things that distinguish us.

We got a great question from a listener: "How much did you know about the other characters' storylines and subplots during the production of 'The White Lotus?'"

I read all of the scripts before I went to Thailand. I was given them almost immediately, but then I wanted to forget them because I wanted to consume the show also as a viewer and a fan. When we were in Thailand – because they were so worried about the material getting out – we were only allowed to see our scenes, and we had to give our scripts back every time we moved.

Oh, interesting.

I intentionally kept a very loose grip on the other characters and tried to forget what happened. In fact, I was successful. I was as surprised last night as you were, but I have two kids, so I don't remember anything.

I love that line in your speech in the finale, about how time gives life meaning. I wrote it down as I was watching the show.

Oh, yes. My kids are 7 and 4 right now, and I look back, and I can't believe how quickly that time is passing. My grandmother used to say, "You blink, and you're 70." There is something about having people in your life who, when they look at you, they see all of you.

I imagine when I look at my son when he's 30, I'll see the baby in there somewhere, which feels really moving and strange. I imagine it's what my parents experienced, but I agree. I think we're living in an increasingly secular country, and we're looking for the places where we find meaning.

There's something about the accumulation of that experience that is meaningful. It's probably one of the reasons why I don't have plastic surgery because I agree. Everything that I've been through is written on my face.

You earned all that. I earned all that. [chuckles]

That's right. I think there's something about valuing that and honoring it and carrying it forward into whatever comes next. I love that that was Mike's conclusion for those women and that she was able to take the criticism her friends gave her, and she gave it back and then also take responsibility for her part and metabolize that and have a shift. It's always more interesting to play a character that changes. That's, I think, good art. People change. I was grateful for Laurie to have that opportunity to maybe make a paradigm shift and see maybe how her values change going forward from this moment.

Got an interesting text: “Ms. Coon is a treasure. I have to ask her, though, to make the U-turn from that speech to running from bullets made me wonder how she processed that with her friends afterwards." There's two parts. It's you as the actor, your ability to turn on a dime. Then also how she processed that with her friends after giving that speech.

Oh, well, what was interesting is that we shoot out of order. For example, I shot crying in my room from episode one and also Jaclyn coming into my room after my event with Aleksei on the same day, my first day of work.

Holy cow.

We don't have the benefit of shooting those things in order. I can't honestly remember if I did the speech before the running or not. I think that was the order of things, with maybe a week in between. What was fascinating about doing that speech in this job is that we were actually living together for six months and our time together was coming to a close and I had not known Michelle and Leslie, so I had lived this six-month friendship with these women with whom I had lived and not only just worked, but lived.

There was a lot of truth in the speech. Just being happy to be at the table is very real in a time when a lot of actors aren't working, when we still haven't recovered from COVID and the strike, and to be able to say honestly to those women that I am glad for the things that we all have. Then it was satisfying to get to do that with those women who I normally wouldn't be in a show with. We'd all be in our own show. We wouldn't be acting together. That's meaningful. Then also, I'm an American, and I'm playing a New Yorker, and if you hear gunshots, you are getting out of there.

You are getting out of there. I just felt like, what would a person do? That person would get out of there. I know every exit in any building I'm in in this country. Sadly, we are all primed for that. We will all know someone who has been in this kind of situation. I do. I have a family member who got shot in the head in a drive-by shooting. We will all know somebody. It was important for me to embody getting the heck out of there when things are going down because that is the American way.

You said something interesting in your answer, that you three women would have all been in different shows, that you wouldn't've been cast together in a show.

Along with Natasha [Rothwell] and Parker [Posey]. We're all women of the same age.

That brings me to my point. That's unusual.

It is unusual. I have that in "The Gilded Age" a little bit, but of course, it's a period piece, and I don't see those other women as often as I'd like. It's just so rare to have that opportunity. We would be pitted against each other, or we wouldn't see each other because we're operating in different worlds. The fact that I had the benefit of working with other women who are at similar stages in their careers and their lives with similar experience with the kind of work ethic that I share.

It was just a very moving and satisfying way to work because that monologue doesn't happen without speaking into the listening of those other women, and so I give them all the credit as my scene partners throughout the season. We culminated together in that moment, and it's just a rare pleasure we don't get. I hope I see more of it because I know women are economic drivers, and we are consumers of art, and we deserve to have our stories told well after 40.

This is an interesting text. It says, "I'm too nervous to call, but I'm still thinking about Carrie's monologue from last night. She nailed it and brought the show home. I'm wondering how many takes that took, how early or late in the season that they shot it."

It was so extreme. There was a pile of tissues on the floor by me because we were just pouring sweat, and we were trying so hard not to move because it was so hot that night. I came in with a really emotional take, my first take. Mike had something really specific he was after. I think we ended up doing it, maybe five or six times, which is a lot for TV and a lot for that heat.

I love Mike because even if you're doing something that works and is effective, if he has something in mind that he needs, he will not let it go. He stayed on me until he got the tone that he wanted. Also, there were just technical things. I was looking around and more inward, I think. He reminded me that, because of the camera angles, I had to deliver one line to Leslie and one line to Michelle just because we only had three cameras to cover it. The DP ended up putting a camera in the middle to give me a little bit more freedom in my process.

I think that's why I noticed that it was maybe one of the later takes because I could tell that I was doing one line to each woman, which I maybe wasn't doing in the first early takes. I'm not cursed with that kind of memory. Some actors were like, "Why didn't you use take three?" That was my bad. I don't have that problem. I'm just like, "Oh, thanks for making me look good, editor."

What was the hardest thing about working on this particular show?

For me, you may notice that when other actors post some of their behind-the-scenes fun shots, I'm not there because anytime I had a break in shooting, I had to fly home to New York. I was commuting home on the longest flight in the world to see my family because it was too hot for them to be there because of climate change. The temperatures in that region were the hottest they've ever been in the history of keeping track until this year. They're actually much hotter. Schools were shut down.

I was not outside between 9 and 4 because the heat and the UV index were so high, and so I could not bring my very pale children to Thailand, especially not flying a 3-year-old for 18 hours. The hardest thing for me was that when I got home and I landed in New York, I was back into my role as a mom. There was no jet lag, there was no nap. There was just like, school drop-off, grocery store, swimming lessons. Then, when that week or 10 days was over, I got on a plane, I flew back to Thailand. Usually, I was on set that day or 24 hours later. I didn't have a lot of time to adjust. Work-life balance was pretty challenging.

That's really interesting.

Yes, it was really hard. I have to give all the credit to my husband for saying, “We're going to figure this out and make this work.” It was not easy on my kids, and it was not easy on my husband, and it was not easy on me. Also, I missed out on a lot of the community building that happens when you're living together like that on set. There's a little bit of a loss on that side as well.

Is that the life of an actor – that you have to make those kinds of choices?

Yes, there's a lot of sacrifice and as a mom it's hard in any job. I know women who are commuting to New York City five days a week. They see their kids in the morning, they see their kids maybe at bedtime. That is harder than what I'm doing, arguably, because maybe I disappeared for a few months, but I'm also around for a lot of the stuff some moms aren't around for. I can't say that it's harder, but when I'm in production, when I came back and I was on the Gilded Age set, 48 hours later, we were working 16 hours. hour days.

I leave at 3 in the morning, and I get home after bedtime. It's hard. The hours are long. It's an endurance test, so much of it. It's a great pleasure to do.

I say you're in demand, which is hard to think about.

That's true. The privilege of being where I am in my career now is the power of no. I get to say no to more things because it's likely that some other job will come. When you're a young actor, you say yes to everything, and you don't know when the next opportunity will come, and you have to capitalize on every moment. I've now gotten to a place where I get to be patient. When I say to my kids, I'm going to stay home for a while, I can actually honor that and keep my word with them, which is something you have to do to recover from the moments when you're commuting to Thailand.