Jennifer Coolidge Almost Refused Her Role In “The White Lotus”

• Coolidge told The Observer that she had “self-destructed” during the pandemic.
• She almost turned down the role of Tanya in the HBO series.
• The actress was convinced that “the virus would win.”

The new HBO series “The White Lotus” is fueled by fantastic performances from Alexandra Daddario, Connie Britton, Jake Lacy and Jennifer Coolidge who revealed that she almost passed the role.

Actress best known for starring in Christopher Guest films like “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind” (also “Legally Blonde” and “American Pie”) receives accolades for playing Tanya McQuoid in dark satire following a group of vacationers.

Although series creator Mike White wrote the role of Tanya with Coolidge in mind, the actress admits she nearly passed because she wasn’t in the right headspace when offered to her. .

“I have been really affected by the pandemic,” Coolidge told The Guardian in a recent interview. “It was an incredibly sad time. I read tragic news daily, took a fatalistic approach and assumed the virus was going to win.”

Coolidge said she knew people who had died from COVID-19 and didn’t care to act. So when White approached her for the role and told her to fly to Hawaii, she admitted it was “an impossibility.”

“I would binge and self-destruct at home for months, eating pizza all day,” she said. “There was no way I wanted to be on the movie unless they shot me from the neck. I’m sort of conceited, so there was no fucking way.”

Coolidge said a text from White at 2 a.m. asking “are you scared?” ultimately motivated her.

“It was like he could read my mind and feel like I was trying to get out of it,” she said.

Then after a good friend told him to “own [her] mess, ”Coolidge flew to Hawaii and filmed the series.

“It’s such a beautiful lesson in life,” she continued. “I would never have forgiven myself. I would have sat down to watch ‘The White Lotus’ and said, ‘What the hell was I thinking? I’m a crazy person.’ Many of us actors are so insecure and afraid of failure that we are wasting our own chances. “

The result is that Coolidge receives some of the best reviews of her career for her role as Tanya – a wealthy woman mourning the loss of her mother.

“Did I feel like I was successful at any level? No,” Coolidge said of his performance. “It’s so weird to act. You can never tell when you’re in the middle of it. What helped me was that my character, Tanya, had parallels to me personally. I had been. incredibly depressed during the pandemic. I lost my own mother at a young age. A family member died during Covid and we couldn’t organize a real memorial. So I had it all to myself. “