Hunting scenes, Chloe and Gary

Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for season 3, episode 4 of “The White Lotus”, which now streams at Max.

For Charlotte Le Bon, playing Chloe in the third season of “The White Lotus” marked the tapping of the blunt, fully assertive disposition of the character. Chloe, the fast-white French Canadian who lives in Thailand with her much older friend Gary Aka Greg (Jon Gries), says it as it is.

“She is really so bitch, which is really fun to play because I am not in real life at all,” says Le Bon.

In the fourth episode, Chloe welcomes several of the most important White Lotus holidaymakers on Gary’s Yacht. New dynamic shape, such as the Group of Four Partiers: Chloe and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), and Brothers Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Lochlan (Sam Nivola). Flash meetings between characters who are otherwise in separate storylines, such as Chloe and the mother of the boys, Victoria (Parker Posey), provide insight into how each person goes through the world. Chloe also seems to want to get out of the grip of her boyfriend for a while, and Gary (who will recognize viewers as Greg, the suspect, murderous husband of Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya Mcquoid in the earlier seasons) reluctantly agrees.

Chloe’s time on the yacht was the first scenes Le Bon filmed, after he was reached to Thailand by an extremely fast audition process that was a self -tape and jumped into a plane about 10 days later.

Le Bon spoke with Variety About Zoom in Paris about being on the yacht (which was just as sizzling as a “sauna”), why Chloe comes closer to the brothers – and what she thinks is going on in the relationship of Chloe and Gary.

What was it like to film on the yacht and set up an understanding with the rest of the cast?

My first scenes were on the yacht, so I was clearly stressed in the beginning. But this cast was very warm and generous, and just so gentle. It is really rare that you feel that way with people. And I really feel that I made some friends on that set.

The yacht – it was so hot. It was the hottest I’ve ever been to my life, certainly – even the locals suffering. We would leave the hotel, go to the harbor, and that would probably be a 35 -minute ride, and then we would take a speedboat, and then we would have to do a 40 -minute speed boat on waves that go this way [motions choppy waves]. We took nausea pills and then went on the boat.

And because Ben Kutchins, who is such a talented DP, was so precise with what he wanted in the background, he always kept running the boat to have some specific islands in the background. So it was the most nauseous ever. It was 50 degrees [Celsius]. But luckily there was some small space in the boat and there was some AC in it.

Why does Chloe invite the entire Ratliff family for the yacht?

Because she’s just a hurry. She is a show -off; She is a bit stubborn. What I like about the scene where she meets Patrick Schwarzenegger and she is from: “I hear you are a shower” – I think she is Also a shower. And she just loves to show off her things and show how rich she is, even if it may not be her money, and just to place a fantastic outfit and just pretend that everything is completely normal.

How did it film the interaction between Chloe and Victoria? Victoria then mocked her and says, “Miss Comeniality.”

That was the first scene I shot, and the “Miss Congieity” was not written. It is just Mike White’s talent to be able to pick up some things in the scene that he didn’t think about, or he is just inspired by a dynamic. I remember that when we first shot the scene, I tried to be nice with everyone and also recognizing everyone and the character of Parker. And he said, “Can you just ignore her?” And then I ignore her and he thought it was great. And then he said, “Can you just be a bitch for her?” He likes that dynamic so much.

There is some competition between women – you can see that in the dynamics between the three girls in the season. I think he is just really inspired by all our human nonsense. He is almost like a sociologist for me.

On the yacht we see the group of four – Chloe, Chelsea, Saxon and Lochlan – forms. Why is Chloe attracted to hanging around with the brothers?

Because they are young, sexy blood in her head. She sees the chance to seduce and have fun, and they are young, and they are completely different from Gary. As she said before, she has been there at Gary for a year, and she is really bored with him. Maybe she thinks they are not so smart and that she can manipulate them and maybe what she wants with them, not with Chelsea, but more with the boys. Because I really think there is a genuine friendship between Chloe and Chelsea.

What does Chloe come from this new friendship with Chelsea, who has a parallel relationship with her own older boyfriend?

They are polar contradictions, and that is probably the reason why she really feels attracted to her. Because Chelsea is really sensitive and gentle. It feels like she’s a very vulnerable young woman, and Chloe probably has that in her, but she just built that huge fence about it. And I think she is also attracted to Chelsea there, and Chelsea is attracted to Chloe’s Dare for the same reason.

There is an interesting conversation between Chloe and Gary when she asks him if she can take the boat without him and only with the friends. Is Chloe afraid of what his reaction could be, or does she know she has wrapped him around her finger?

I think it’s a mix. I think she is walking a bit on eggshells with him. Perhaps there is a part of her that is a bit scared, but I think that is probably exciting her. I think she likes to be scared. She likes to play with fire, and she knows that what she asks is really brave and not really subtle, but she still [goes] Before that, but that’s just their deal. He is older and he just can’t keep up with her. If he tried to lock her up, she would probably just go crazy and leave. So that is probably the only way to keep her, is just to release her, which is a wonderful definition of love.

She says: “I love you” to him.

It is really genuine.

Do you think there is actually affection?

Yes, I think there is absolute affection.

What do you think her motivation is in dating Gary, long term? Does she have a goal for where she wants the relationship to go?

I don’t think she really thinks in the long term. She’s just right at the moment. I don’t think she has a plan, and that’s why she is a bit lost, because she probably doesn’t really know what her true desires are.

Do you think Chloe is aware that people can regard her as a sex worker, what Rick (Walton Goggins) suggests in the second episode?

Yes, probably, but she really doesn’t care. I think she just likes when people talk about her. They don’t really care. And what I also really like about her character is that she really speaks of her mind. There are some episodes later where she is simply confronted with Saxon for some things he did, and she just tells the truth, and I like that. She really doesn’t give a shit!

Chloe tells Chelsea in the season premiere that the bald white boys in Thailand are LBHS – “Losers at home.” How does her consciousness of social dynamics help navigate her life there in Thailand?

There is still an arrogance. Although she is an expat and although she talks about the LBHS, there is still such an arrogance. I think she still thinks she might be above that, but she is absolutely part of it.

Chloe mentions in episode 3 that Gary’s ex-wife committed suicide. Does she suspect something sinister behind the death of his wife? How much does she know about his past?

It is complicated, because that is a conversation that I had with Mike, and I think we had different opinions about it. She is not aware of what happened to Mike. For me I played something that was in the middle where it could be true that she didn’t know what happened, but I was a bit excited to play something where she knew everything, and that they were a kind of team. Even if he didn’t tell her the truth, I don’t think she is buying that story. I think she is a smart girl, so she probably won’t buy it, but she just tells the story because it is a scary story and it attracts attention.

When Belinda comes to them during dinner and Gary asks if they have met in Hawaii, is Chloe skeptical about Gary’s response?

I think she’s skeptical opposite them both. That’s the thing. As she says in one of the scenes, he never talks about her about his ex-wife. So as soon as this woman comes and she talks about Tanya McQuoid, it is very unusual. Perhaps she is partly skeptical, she might be a little jealous – because we are talking about another woman who has shared his life. And also, it is either that he had never spoken about Hawaii, and she thinks it is really strange that this woman comes up and talks about Hawaii, or she knows everything and she is afraid that this woman will raise this information.

In the same episode, Gary notes that Chloe and Saxon look at each other during dinner. What does she think about Gary’s judgment at that time?

Usually she would probably say that she is not interested in other men, and that the age difference does not matter to her, and that she is really happy with that and that she is not interested in young men in general because they are boring for her, and they don’t have much mystery. They don’t have the density, such as depth. So I think the second that he sees that, exactly the opposite is. She is just caught on something she shouldn’t do, or she was not subtly enough about it.

This interview has been edited and condensed.