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Theo James Shot a Full-Frontal 'White Lotus' Scene—But It Got Cut

theo james
theo james

We could’ve had it all!

The White Lotus star Theo James has revealed that originally, a scene he shot with co-star Aubrey Plaza was meant to be a lot more than what we saw.

In a scene in the season 2 premiere, Harper (Plaza) takes her husband’s friend Cameron (James) to her hotel room so he could borrow a pair of her husband’s swim trunks since his luggage never arrived in Italy. Harper thinks he’s going to change in the other room, but simply drops his shorts and gets changed right in front of her.

Harper is of course shocked to see her husband’s friend get fully naked in front of her, but she brushes it aside and tries to give him the benefit of the doubt (something we see him lose by episode 3).

Now, James has revealed to Entertainment Weekly that showrunner Mike White crafted the scene to be even more extreme.

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“I thought it was very interesting but also very White Lotus in a Mike [White] way,” James said of the scene. “What he does is — this is Mike's writing — he treads the boundary of how calculated that was, or was it just easy-breezy?”

“On the day, we had to figure out what that was because the original derivation of it, it's kind of full-frontal, if you know what I mean,” he added. “We shot that and it felt too much, too aggressive. What we came to is a bit more opaque, and that's exactly what Mike does so well. You're never sure a hundred percent of the characters' intentions.”

Gay Twitter LOVED the finalized version of the changing scene that made it to air, so we can only imagine how it would’ve gone if the scene included actual full frontal!

The first season was famous for a scene where Murray Bartlett’s stressed-out concierge Armond was caught rimming a fellow hotel employee. It was one of the most talked about scenes on TV last year and Bartlett eventually won an Emmy for the role.

The White Lotus season 2 airs Sundays on HBO Max.

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