‘The White Lotus’ Costume Designer’s Vision for Harper and Daphne Transformed After Meeting Aubrey Plaza and Meghann Fahy
variety.comKaren M. Peterson From the start, “The White Lotus” has focused on building characters. The second season of Mike White’s watercooler show for HBO, brought a (mostly) new cast, a new location and a switch from limited series to drama, where it added 23 Emmy nominations to its tally, five of which went to supporting actresses.
Due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, the nominees are not allowed to do press, but luckily, those who helped cast and outfit them are.
Returning star Jennifer Coolidge, who won an Emmy for her role as Tanya McQuoid in Season 1, is in a different place in the second season, recently married but in a shaky relationship — something costume designer Alex Bovaird considered when creating her Sicilian vacation wardrobe. “We felt like she would up the ante and try and pull out all the stops in her attire to look put together and gorgeous and glamorous,” says Bovaird.
Casting director Meredith Tucker admires what Coolidge brings to Tanya — the role was written for her, after all. “Her behavior is infuriating, but you have such a well of love for the character that she kind of can get away with it,” says Tucker. “She’s a really empathetic person.” Uneasy interactions between Meghann Fahy’s socialite Daphne Sullivan and Aubrey Plaza’s tense Harper Spiller, vacationing together with their husbands, provide a lot of drama in the season, and Tucker saw Fahy as the perfect choice for Daphne’s “natural sunniness and warmth.” Daphne “is not this vapid woman,” Tucker says. “She is very much in control of her life.
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