The Wild Ride of Carrie Coon

If you were among the many viewers who, upon meeting the trio of childhood friends reuniting in the first episode of The White Lotus’s third season, couldn’t tell any of them apart, please know that was the point. At least according to creator Mike White, who dubbed them “the blonde blob.” But as the episodes ticked by, their personalities came into focus: There’s attention-seeking, brazen TV actress Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), prim and uptight Austin philanthropist Kate (Leslie Bibb), and recently-divorced, boozy New York lawyer Laurie (Carrie Coon).

As Laurie, Coon brings a spiky sense of insecurity and a near-desperate desire to be accepted by her friends, even when she’s talking shit about them (Jaclyn seeks validation in men! Kate maybe voted for Trump!) and when she knows they’re talking shit about her.

After Jaclyn sleeps with their “health mentor,” Valentin (Arnas Fedaravičius), the women stop gossiping in private, and bring their decades-long grievances to the group dinner table. In Sunday night’s episode, Jaclyn takes a jab at Laurie: “Are you life’s victim or are you doing it to yourself?”

Jaclyn’s betrayal is “the catalyst for this moment where they actually start to say things to each other's faces,” Coon says over Zoom from her home in Westchester. It’s a Tuesday afternoon and the actress, best known for her Emmy-nominated roles in Fargo and The Gilded Age, is relaxed and wearing a sweatshirt that reps the Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic—a happy coincidence considering her character, Laurie, was reading a book written by the shop’s owner (Emma Straub) in episode 6. “So many pieces of art that are asking about identity ask the central question, ‘If you let go of the illusions you have about yourself or other people, can this relationship survive?’ That's where they are right now.”

After the women explode at one another, Laurie ditches Jaclyn and Kate and heads for the Muay Thai fight, where she meets up with Valentin and his Russian buddies. After a few beers and blood spatter in the ring, Laurie finally gets laid…albeit with conman Aleksei (Julian Kostov), who, post-coital, asks her for $10,000 to help his mother. (“Paypal? Zelle? Cash app?”) She’s then forced to flee the scene, pants barely fastened, after a few knocks to the head courtesy of Aleksei’s girlfriend.

Here, Coon breaks down the penultimate episode, Laurie’s fashion choices, and how she gained “autonomy” by filming in Thailand without her family.

Marie Claire: In a lot of ways, this trio is the most relatable group of the guests. Was this a familiar dynamic to you?

Carrie Coon: I know a lot of women who have childhood friends, and they go on girls’s trips every year. That is just not the way my life has unfolded. I looked like a boy until I was 17, and then I was one of those problematic girls who didn't think I could be friends with girls. I found female friendship very late in my life, and in that way I think my female friendships have a degree of health and stability.

But the writing is excellent and we all understand that these dynamics exist between women. We are forced to compare ourselves to others. Buddhism says that the comparing mind is a source of great pain and suffering, and whether you think you are better or worse, you will have suffering, and you will cause suffering for other people. It just makes perfect sense that this trio of ladies is who Mike has chosen to put into this Buddhist country examining spiritual questions about identity and self and reckoning with your own life choices.

MC: In the first episode, viewers are led to believe that Jaclyn and Kate are the two best friends and Laurie is on the outside. She is in a lot of ways but as everything unfolds, you realize there are one million dynamics at play in this tripod. It’s not that simple. How did you talk to Leslie and Michelle about this trio’s relationship?

CC: All three of us have been doing this long enough. Your job is to show up prepared and be present in the scene. But normally in a job, there would only be one of us, there wouldn't be three of us. It was such a distinct pleasure at this particular age and at this time in our careers to get to be on the same set together. Because we know the job, we know exactly what's expected of us, and our scenes would always go quickly because you had three really professional women coming in super prepared to do the work.

At the same time, we were actually living together in the Four Seasons. While we were acting out this old friendship, we were forging our new friendship because we were literally eating our meals together, going to the gym together, going to the grocery store, washing our underwear outside. We were doing all of these really intimate things. In some ways we were living this five-month friendship, even as we're living through this old friendship unfolding, however complicated that was. But we are really healthy people in very successful times in our lives. We are the Jaclyns, in a way.

MC: What intrigued you most about Laurie as a character?

CC: In some ways, she's a lot like me. When my family saw episode 5 [when Laurie dances at the bar], they said, "Well, it's nothing we haven't seen you do at a wedding.”

But I really like her arc through the season. She has to hit this very particular bottom, and because no one has seen episode 8, you don't know if she survives, you don't know if she goes postal, kills everyone. You don't know if she learns something or she learns nothing. But it doesn't stay static. None of the characters will be in the same place where they started.

MC: How would you define her arc?

CC: Dark night of the soul, baby. It's not the one she was expecting, it's not the one she wanted. It's not what she was seeking, but it's what she's getting.

MC: It was so fun to watch her let loose in episode 5. She goes to bed dancing! Do you think that she wanted to hook up with Valentin? Why do you think she didn't go for it?

CC: Laurie means what she says early in the episodes when Jaclyn suggests that she go after Valentin. She says, "I don't think he'd be interested anyway."

Ultimately, those questions are about self-esteem. She's just come out of a divorce and she hasn't been playing the game for a while. She's waiting for him to make a move, and Jaclyn doesn't wait. Also, she's a drunk, and drunks aren't necessarily good on the follow-through. They can make mistakes and Laurie finally gets hers, but not without consequences. Not without some real deep humiliation. The thing she was afraid of turns out to be true.

MC: You’re talking about how, in episode 7, she sleeps with Aleksei, who turns out to be a conman. What do you think she is hoping to get from this experience? And do you think she gets any of it?

CC: She's not unhappy to get laid. I think if she were to walk away from a Thai vacation with a sexy young boyfriend, that would be a dream come true. A dream she didn't know she had. But perhaps she’s looking for validation from her friends. To prove to them and to herself that she is attractive.

But then she experiences this humiliation where she almost has to laugh. You have now jumped out a window and got smacked on the head by some booby Russian and you don't know where you are and you don't know how to get home, and it's humiliating.

MC: Backing up a bit, when she's having dinner with Jaclyn and Kate, instead of talking shit about one another, they're talking shit about each other to each other in a way that feels like they're being honest for the first time. Kate says that Laurie is always disappointed, and it’s like Laurie realizes someone else sees the worst qualities she sees in herself. She’s confronted with the fact that these women know her.

CC: Laurie is really good at calling out other people. She has not been good about taking responsibility for her part in it. People who love you the most can also hurt you the most. They are probably people who actually do see you. So ultimately, they do really know each other. They do see each other and they don't necessarily want to look at themselves. It's a very painful moment. It's a catalyst for whether or not we think this friend group can or should survive this vacation.

My husband [the writer and actor Tracy Letts] wrote a play, and in it there's a quote that says, "New friends are better than old friends." You have to ask yourself, at what point are these relationships being continued just out of habit as opposed to true identification with one another? How are they reactive? If they're unexamined, you will continue to be living inside reactivity.

MC: I'm curious to find out in the finale if they leave as friends.

CC: Yeah, me too. Maybe everybody dies. Everybody dies.

MC: There is a moment when she's leaving Aleksei's apartment and she sees the jewels. Do you think that she was clocking that he's the thief or is that a subtle confirmation to the audience that he was?

CC: I think because we saw that snake necklace with Chelsea in the shop, the audience will certainly make that connection. Our storyline is so siloed in a way, I don't think they know. They've heard about the robbery, but they don't know specifically what was taken. Any intelligent person is thinking, "That doesn't belong here," right? “There's something more sinister happening. And I should probably get the fuck out.”

MC: You said in a recent interview that one of the most profound parts of doing The White Lotus was the “recovery of your personal autonomy.” What did you gain from this experience?

CC: I don't know any mother who isn't suffering from burnout. Because of the way we parent now—alone in a house without community—it's very hard to be a parent. There's a different psychological demand on women when their children are young. Trying to balance a successful career, which I'm in the throes of right now, with raising young children means there's always an opportunity cost. I either have to turn down a really great job or my relationship with my children will suffer on some level.

My children are incredibly privileged and safe and well cared for. They have wonderful people in their lives who support us. However, women at all levels are struggling with this question of work-life balance that is absolutely impossible to achieve. For me, to go away [to film in Thailand] for weeks at a time, I would sleep when I wanted to sleep, somebody was cooking for me, and I didn't have to clean up. I could read books and I could exercise and take care of myself. I could meditate, and I could go swim in the ocean. Being the arbiter of how I spend my time is something that I don't know another woman who's parenting right now has. The idea that my career affords me the chance to step away from being a mother and then come back to it so that I can appreciate it on another level is a thing most women don't get.

Because I live a creative life, when I get to be away from my family, there's something really fulfilling about the process I'm engaged in, which is about building something and being fully expressed. So it's a tremendous gift to get to do it. I credit my husband with making space for me to do it.

But then the flip side is when I had free time, I had to get on a plane for 18 hours and fly home and there's no jet lag, there's no nap. I got pneumonia. I was so sick during a lot of that shoot because I had to go back and forth.

Other people were like, "Let's go to Cambodia, let's go to Tokyo." I was like, "I got to go home to New York and do laundry and make dinner and make sure my children are feeling psychologically cared for, and make sure the nannies have the right schedule and that the swimming lessons are scheduled for the summer, and that all the bills are paid for these extracurricular activities." The responsibilities were just overwhelming.

My husband had said to me at some point, "I just want you to know, we see all the things you do. We do recognize all the things you're doing that we don't even know about." I know women who are waiting 10 years in a marriage to hear that from their partner.

MC: It's probably important for your children to see you pursuing this creative endeavor in a way that shows that you have a full life as a person, as Carrie Coon, not just as Mom.

CC: Yes. It’s important even to counteract their feelings of privilege and entitlement in the life they're living. A little discomfort is good. These kids need to learn frustration tolerance, and they need to learn about their own resourcefulness and resilience.

MC: Costume designer Alex Bovaird has said Laurie is really trying to keep up with Jaclyn and live this glamorous lifestyle, and you can see that through her style. What kind of conversations did you have with the costume designer?

CC: What was important to me is that while she is in resort clothing, she maybe didn't pack as well. She certainly wasn't like Kate. She didn't go out and buy a whole new wardrobe for this trip, which you know Kate did. Her clothes feel a little bit off. They're not quite right. They don't fit as well. Her hat's a little dowdy but necessary because she's not going to get sun. It was important to me that her nail color feel a little bit weird. It's this weird violet-y blue, like she was trying something and it just didn't work. Those were the choices we made along with the fact that she's in Thailand and Laurie doesn't know what to do with her hair. It's frizzy.

MC: All the details matter so much and they really pop when they're right. I’m not the only one who clocked her reading Emma Straub’s Modern Lovers by the pool in episode 6. Did you have a say in that?

CC: Mike and I did go through some selects. That's her beach read. The joke for me and Mike that no one will ever see is that she brought A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. She’s like, “Everyone’s talking about this book. I have to read it.” But she just can't bring herself to read it. So A Little Life is actually in Laurie's suitcase.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Hair Peter Butler | Makeup Rebecca Restrepo | Stylist Alicia Lombardini