Will Sharpe has seen your White Lotus thirst tweets
When Will Sharpe first read the script for The White Lotus, Mike White's sly satire that shifted the focus from season 1's delusions of the one percent to season 2's sexual politics and desire, he found it, well… comical.
"It was quite funny. I mean, it is still funny," Sharpe, 36, says over Zoom from his native London, his English inflection abandoning all signs of his reserved American tech bro Ethan. "But quite early on, I started to realize that Mike didn't want to play anything for laughs, really."
While on a Sicilian vacation with his wife Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and his former college roommate Cameron (Theo James), a haughty and affluent finance bro, and his wife, Daphne (Meghann Fahy), the facades of Ethan's marriage begin to crack, not unlike the well-preserved ruins of the once grandiose monuments that dot the Italian island.
Amid the antics, sex and power converge — and "the straighter we played everything, the more honest it became," Sharpe observes of his and Plaza's performance, citing the "painful" tensions between their characters. To get into the headspace of Ethan — someone "so terrified" of the prospect of a crumbling marriage, and uncertain of himself amidst newfound wealth — was not always comfortable, Sharpe says, calling the role quite possibly the "hardest part I've ever played."
Below, Sharpe revisits the role, addresses those thirst tweets, and shares an update on Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart movie adaptation, which he's set to direct.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You're an accomplished actor and director in your native England, but the role of Ethan helped introduce you to a wider American audience. Are fan interactions any different now post-White Lotus?
WILL SHARPE: I guess they're more frequent, maybe, is the main thing. I don't know if they're any different. I definitely feel aware that The White Lotus is the thing I've been in that has been the most watched, if you know what I mean.
You're not on social media, but the season had a major social media presence. Were you aware of the NSFW tweets about Ethan? Do you remember what it felt like to become aware of the fervor in real-time?
Only if a friend forwarded something to me because he thought it was funny, or Mike sent me a couple of memes that he thought was funny, so only dimly, yeah. I guess I was pleased that people seemed to be watching and enjoying the show. And it was sort of an icebreaker. If I had a meeting for work or if I was meeting some friends, it would tend to be, while it was [airing], the thing that we would talk about for a few minutes before moving on to other things. I always had faith in Mike and in the show, but it nevertheless manages to be surprising when something seems to strike a chord in that way.
The series helped with the Jennifer Coolidge renaissance, and it's a shame there weren't many Tanya/Ethan/Harper dynamics onscreen. What was that dynamic like offscreen? Were you able to spend time together?
Yeah, there were some cast dinners and things. I had a few interactions with her. I found her to be very interesting and definitely sort of delivers on your expectations. I found her to be a person who was interested in other people as well. Our stories didn't really intersect that much, but occasionally, if we're doing a dinner scene or something, we would be in the back of each others' shots. So from across the room, I could often see her and Tom Hollander doing their thing. She's so great.
You and Meghann have been asked at length about Ethan and Daphne's island one-on-one, after Ethan suggests something may have happened between their spouses, and how it's open to interpretation. I'm wondering what kind of direction Mike gave while filming and whether there were any challenges to bringing it to screen, since the acting is not anchored by dialogue but body language.
I feel like there were different gradations of it. There was actually a version where Mike said to me, "Maybe this is the time where everything that has been building up in Ethan, something about what Daphne is saying sort of releases it." That felt like it was too intense a response because it wasn't quite the end of the story yet. Meghann and I had scenes together in a quartet where there were glances across the table or fleeting moments, but we hadn't really had a scene together. I just remember thinking how beautifully she was doing that speech and how important it felt in terms of the series and the questions Mike [was] asking. It does create some kind of shift in Ethan. It felt like a rare moment of kindness between characters, and connection, where so much of the series is about dysfunction and toxicity and problematic male behavior and tensions within friendships, within marriages.
But going to the islands, Meghann and I didn't really talk about it, nor did Mike, really. Because it felt like the script was implicitly ambiguous. We obviously had to play something. It definitely felt like something was probably about to happen. I remember taking a pause at the end of the walk before leaving the frame. I remember wanting to take that pause in order to make a choice to follow her and for it not to be, "Oh, he's just inevitably drifting onto that island and he can't help it." If it's a positive thing that he's doing at that moment, I wanted him to be responsible for it. And if it's a negative thing, I wanted him to be held accountable. So I remember pausing because I wanted there to be a feeling of choice — particularly because in the earlier episodes, Ethan's quite reactive, he's quite pacific. On the surface of it anyway, he seems like he's trying not to rock the boat and he's letting other people's behavior affect what he needs to do or say.
The first time I read the script, I sort of thought all that sex stuff was comical. But quite early on, I started to realize Mike didn't want to play anything for laughs, really. So the straighter we played everything, the more honest it became, and the more these tensions would start to come to the surface, and I started to realize how painful that situation would be. I think Mike wanted to communicate a kind of agony in that hotel room between [Ethan and Harper]...and to get into that head space where somebody is so terrified of his relationship falling apart or worried about who he is, that was not always a comfortable headspace. It definitely required a certain kind of vulnerability, I think, on both our parts. Because Ethan and Harper start off saying, "Oh, we're really honest with each other." And they're not at all, really. But eventually they do start being honest with each other, and when they are honest with each other, it's quite sad.
How do you look back at that experience of filming now?
I guess gratefully. While you are making it, just to speak for myself, I'm not really thinking about what the response is going to be. I'm just thinking about the character and what he's going through and how to try to manifest where Ethan's at. And sometimes that's not a very comfortable place. It felt like he was going through some kind of existential change or crisis. I don't know if that was entirely because of his relationship with Harper, or if it might also have been because he recently came into all this wealth; maybe he's questioning who he is as a person too. There's various ways of interpreting the show. When it was coming out, I was just happy that people seemed to be responding to it. And here we are still talking about it.
I also want to talk about Crying in H Mart. I know you've put out a casting call for the lead role, but what else can you tell me about where you are with production?
It's going really well. We're still in pre-prep, those early days, so I don't know how much I can say, really. But I'm excited about how it's going. I'm excited about the team that we're assembling. And the casting has been really interesting, very exciting. We've had a really huge response to that call out. Watch this space, I guess.
How did it fall into your lap? Is there a script yet?
There is a script. Michelle, who wrote the book, it's her story, she's written the script. It was sent to me alongside the book. It's a very beautifully, delicately told story of Michelle's experience growing up as a Korean American, and there were things that I could relate to as a Japanese British person having spent a chunk of my life in Tokyo. Also, her journey of losing her mother, I found incredibly affecting. I think in part because she writes in such a light-handed way where she's not really begging for your emotions and it sort of leaves the space for you to feel them. We started talking and I would give my take on the story and how I might approach it from a director point of view. We all just seemed to click very easily.
Is this the first time you've crossed paths?
Yeah. I was aware of [Michelle's band] Japanese Breakfast, but I wasn't aware of the backstory to the Psychopomp album until I read the book. I was a fan of her music already, but we'd never met.
With White Lotus and H Mart under your belt, what project or role would you want to tackle next? "I don't want to do anything, I want to go to bed" would also be an acceptable response.
Well, I would like to go to bed, that would be nice, but I don't know if I can. I don't know. What's fun is to do stuff that is challenging and different and puts you out of your comfort zone, anything that is sort of surprising, which is what I loved about Ethan. He was such a sort of enigma. I guess in the past, I've played characters normally who are more overtly like a character role. And because Ethan is so nuanced and subtle, finding a way into that character was probably the hardest part I've ever played in a way. It was really fun to do the cathartic, more explosive scenes towards the end of the season. But in a way, I'm proudest of holding my nerve in those quieter moments because I think it only works as a journey. And I've met some great people on that show who I learned a lot from and who are still friends. So yeah, anything that is challenging and surprising is welcome.
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