'White Lotus' Star Simona Tabasco Is Peeling Away Her Character's Armor (2024)

The first time we see Simona Tabasco as Lucia in Season 2 of The White Lotus, she is insouciantly sucking on a lollipop as she eyes the resort's newly docked batch of arrivals, like a hunter sizing up her game. Four episodes later, she transforms into the prey.

This unraveling of Lucia—a "naive" escort, as Tabasco describes her, who eagerly dives into the churning whirlpool of money and status and mythical misery, the kind that could only ever afflict the wealthy—is all part of the White Lotus experience. Whether checking in or clocking in, the fictional five-star resort has a way of wringing from its inhabitants that which they cannot bear to surface on their own.

In Lucia's case, she gets emotional whiplash from the seductive promises of opportunity from the hotel's affluent clientele. She starts out as one half of a plucky pair of best friends, cheekily scheming with Beatrice Grannò's Mia. Together, the two reign over the Sicilian hotel grounds under the aegis of Michael Imperioli's Dominic Di Grasso, whose initial hiring of Lucia's services is what brings the duo to The White Lotus in the first place. There, she is domineering, ballsy, unflappable, but the facade of confidence (as it so often does) crumbles under the weight of pretense and judgment that her job requires her to endure.

"She's always searching for something," the Naples-born actress tells BAZAAR.com over Zoom, communicating with the help of her translator. "We always see her running around with a goal, something that she's looking for, and maybe in the end, what she's looking for is love—basically a connection to other human beings, warmth, closeness. I think that's her journey throughout the season."

Ahead, Tabasco dissects the many layers of Lucia, reveals the on-set reputation that showrunner Mike White teased her for, and hints at the show's "emotional" murder mystery ending.

How much of The White Lotus had you watched before joining the cast for Season 2?

I watched The White Lotus after I received the first audition, and then I immediately thought that it was a really amazing show and I wanted to be a part of it so bad. During the [audition] taping, I had COVID. So I didn't meet Mike White during the auditions, but the story has a good ending.

What was your first impression of Lucia as a character?

The part I received for the audition was pretty short, so I couldn't get a total sense of the arc the character would take throughout the season, but the first thing I thought about that was pretty clear from the start was how strong Lucia is and the fact that she's always searching for something. We always see her running around with a goal, something that she's looking for, and maybe in the end, what she's looking for is love—basically a connection to other human beings, warmth, closeness. I think that's her journey throughout the season.

What was the creative process like in building Lucia with Mike White? How involved were you in that; how much of it was coming from Mike's direction?

The line that Mike laid out about the character of Lucia was pretty precise, although I did not get any particular advice when I received the part for the auditions at the beginning. When I did get the part, I found myself in Taormina, and we started shooting, and we did talk about Lucia a little bit. But in the end, it was all very spontaneous.

We ended up building the character scene after scene, because every day we felt something new could happen. I think it was after a little bit that we just found or maybe stumbled upon a key on which to carry Lucia throughout the season without thinking about it too much. And I think that that's actually the beauty of it, why it works so well. We had a lot of time on set, so we could speak about the characters, the scenes. It was very intense, but very useful.

I think what we often see on the show with the other characters is that they're constantly casting this judgment onto Lucia. We see Valentina, who throws her out of the hotel in the first episode, and then Cameron who hires her but then also speaks about her in a derogatory way. And I think sometimes we even see Mia reacting to Lucia in a way that can be interpreted as disapproving. Do you think Lucia senses this feeling of judgment? Does it affect her in any way?

I don't wanna spoil too much, but there will be a point where Lucia does feel the judgment that's kind of impending on her. She has this moment—it's very specific—but maybe it's just the product of one night too many in the world of The White Lotus that brings her to that point in her character development.

What I think is that her hunger that we see throughout the season—of her being, finding, exploring, looking for something—will probably transform her. She did choose a professional life of a certain sort, and she did choose to use her body to get to her goals, so she starts off as someone who dominates over circ*mstance and people, but then at the end, she will let herself go and maybe—maybe—be dominated by what's around her. So it kind of flips a little bit.

Speaking of her profession, when it comes to the portrayal of sex work and media, I feel like there's a tendency to portray sex workers in extremes, like either as victims of a system or as manipulative and seductive. Did you personally feel any pressure to play Lucia as someone who defies the tropes of her occupation? Or how do you humanize a character who has such a stigmatized job to audiences?

I think, and Mike was agreeing with me, that there's no specific way to portray a character that plays a prostitute. It depends on circ*mstance, history, background, and what is the story that you're trying to tell. As far as acting goes and how we did this on set, Mike was very clear, but as I said before, it's something that we built throughout the shooting.

What's important that I think I say is that Lucia is an escort, but she's also a little naive. She's not a pro. It's not something that she's been doing forever; it's not something that she is amazing at. She has her own insecurities with it. And so, I think that's beautiful, because it underlines her humanity in it. We never forget the person that's behind the role that she is playing for this particular occasion.

[Concerning] the topic of women that are victims in this industry, which is a reality, I did think about it. But I don't want to bring this particular thing into the conversation, because I think it mixes two worlds that are not necessarily mixing here at all, because Lucia, the character, she's a free woman. She makes this choice for herself. We see it in the season. So I think this is important that it doesn't get mixed up.

I get the sense that Lucia is wearing an armor that begins to kind of break down as the show goes on. I'm curious what you think is shifting in her as this happens.

There's one element to this shift in her character and what we see of her. Of course, it's necessary for the writing so that the character gets her own 3D development throughout the story, giving her dimension, giving her a thickness and lots of different details that make her what she is. The central thing here is that she will show herself as more vulnerable at one point, but I think the key is this is more related to herself, rather than the characters she has around her. It's more a journey of [what] she does and [how she] perceives herself, rather than what people will see outside.

She's a character that is very ambiguous. You can never catch her. You're trying to, but you never really can. Maybe I didn't even in the end, who knows? Maybe I did not entirely capture her spirit in the end. But I think the important part is she does go through this, but it's more for herself and inside herself, rather than what the people she interacts with at The White Lotus would actually see.

I also wanna talk about the really beautiful onscreen chemistry with Beatrice Grannò. Lucia and Mia's friendship is so endearing. How did you go about building that relationship?

I met Beatrice 10 years ago in a film school, and then she went to London to study acting and I was in Rome. We [caught each other about] three years ago on another set, and then we became friends day by day.

Then, The White Lotus auditions [came], and I didn't have a friend to help with the audition. So I asked Beatrice, I said, "Beatrice, please help me with this." And she said that she received the Mia auditions, and we were like, "It's impossible!" So she started to dream about The White Lotus experience, The White Lotus set. And at the end, Mike White called us. We could not believe it.

So the chemistry on set was very easy, because we were friends before The White Lotus. This experience contributed to growing the relationship between us.

Did you both ever establish what the history was between Lucia and Mia before the show? How do you imagine their friendship was before they got to The White Lotus?

We didn't have a lot of time, given how quick everything was, to get into that. We did a little bit on set just before we started shooting with Mike, but we heavily relied on the connection that we already had, since it was so authentic and parallel to what Mia and Lucia would be as friends in real life. That was pretty spontaneous and easy.

In addition to Beatrice, you also worked with some other really great actors this season, like Sabrina Impacciatore—I love those scenes with Valentina, I think they're hilarious. And also Michael Imperioli.

Everyone.

What was the energy like on set?

It was really great, because all the actors were very open to being inclusive. Basically, when this project started and I got on set and we were all there, my head was literally exploding with so many emotions, because I was feeling scared of what was gonna happen. I wanted to do a good job and all of that, but it quickly turned into feeling so included and easy with the rest of the cast. We were all very focused on the work that we were doing. We all wanted to do a good job, and all this was happening inside the bubble of the Four Seasons where we were all staying. It transformed from being an incredibly unnerving thing to an incredibly beautiful thing that I was so grateful for.

Is there anything that sticks out to you as a funny memory from set?

Oh, my God. A lot of funny memories. A funny episode—and maybe it was a little dangerous while it was happening—was in the first episode when I get into the hotel, there's a scene where I run. And during shooting, I held onto a piece of furniture that was a prop and it fell on the floor and had a big sound and scared everybody. That was actually just one time [of many] where I either ran or fell or hit my foot or something, up to the point where Mike was telling me, "Please, do not move. Just stand still 'cause you're gonna get hurt. You can't be hurt. You need to stop."

I built a little bit of a reputation with this, and Mike was always teasing me about it. I was like a bee on set. I was just going flower by flower. I mean, I'm joking, but I was full of energy.

Without giving too much away, how did you find out about the murder mystery in the end, and was it unexpected for you?

This was a very big element that I think will be bigger than the first season. It's one of the [plot] lines that carries the story throughout that I think is very relevant. It was very emotional to read.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.