By Esther Zuckerman

Digital detoxes, meditation, Buddhist philosophy and other antidotes to contemporary life have entered "The White Lotus." In the third iteration of the HBO anthology created by Mike White, wealthy vacationers don't just want a lavish holiday. They want to heal their souls. For them, that means heading East.

At their service is the staff at a luxury wellness resort in Thailand, who offer them a hodgepodge of treatments, not entirely traditional -- think sensory deprivation tanks and a machine that collects biometric data. The season, which premiered in February, befits the moment. As wellness culture with all its facets has escalated into a movement that's gone as far as Washington, D.C., the series investigates what it takes to heal a collective spiritual malaise. But it doesn't provide easy answers.

"The wellness industrial complex needs us to be sick in order to continue," said Natasha Rothwell, who plays spa manager Belinda. "So what Mike shows is some really sick individuals, spiritually seeking something to fix it. And the gag is: You gotta fix yourself."

The actors became wellness coaches in their own right -- and pampered themselves plenty for the job. To embody healers, some actors studied Eastern therapies. Rothwell visited Thai spas and got a massage in which her soul left her body, she said. Much like her character, who is on an exchange program at the resort to improve her craft, Rothwell asked real-life massage therapists their own tools of the trade.

"There's so much of the client that you take on as a masseuse emotionally," she recalled discussing with a spa worker. "How do you process that and then go about your life?"

This tension, between wealthy people and the service workers tasked with indulging them, is a dynamic the show has explored since its beginning. Each season has focused on a theme: the first about class, the second about sex, and now wellness. This time, hotel guests are paired with mentors who give them personalized self-improvement treatments. ("Everyone in L.A. is talking about it," quips Michelle Monaghan's character about the resort.)

Valentin, a Russian health mentor and yoga teacher played by Lithuanian actor Arnas Fedaravičius, coaches a group of sniping gal pals on a girls' trip. The women, portrayed by Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb and Monaghan, objectify him as a sex object, gossip behind each other's backs and passive-aggressively squabble about aging and body fat. "Did she sandblast her face or something? It's very waxy," the Texas mom (Bibb) badmouths about her famous-actress friend (Monaghan).

Fedaravičius started making a habit of yoga about a decade ago and added his own moves to a scene when the cameras kept rolling. He also received training in Reiki traditions for a scene where he has to perform it on Coon. After, "Mike came up to me and he's like, God, now I want a Reiki session," he said.

Fedaravičius treated himself to massages almost daily and said most of the cast had done the same. "At one point or another you're like, 'Wait a minute. I'm having a White Lotus experience within the White Lotus experience.'" The role still challenged him to consider the illusion wellness programs sell and recognize the performative aspects of the job.

"We're just making people think that they're doing good, which still is a good thing, because I think whatever you think becomes your reality," he said.

Other actors playing staff, like Thai actor Dom Hetrakul and Sri Lankan actress Shalini Peiris, drew from their own experiences with Americans traveling to their home countries looking for a spiritual awakening. Thailand attracts people all over the world for its massages, with "levels from a streetside foot massage up to the hotel spa level," said Hetrakul, who plays Pornchai, Belinda's instructor. Hetrukal said White understood the "nature of the guest" because the writer himself was one.

Peiris, who plays spiritual counselor Amrita, took a course on Buddhism to perfect her character's approach to her pupils. The actress, who was raised Buddhist and Christian, works with Walton Goggins as Rick, whose younger girlfriend (Aimee Lou Wood) wants to help him with his stress.

"Every so often, someone will tell me that they went on some kind of spiritual journey" to Sri Lanka, Peiris said. "They were almost expecting to find themselves there."

Peiris recognized this in Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), a college student who traveled there with her uninterested family to visit a Buddhist monastery: "She comes with this yearning and this longing and this understanding of Buddhism, but when she gets there, is it actually what she thought?" Peiris said.

In the first episode, staff member Pam, played by Morgana O'Reilly, requests Piper's chaotic family give up their phones. Piper's dad, played by Jason Isaacs, can't resist answering calls from a hounding reporter.

"Everybody who goes to the White Lotus is searching," said O'Reilly. "If you have a lot of money, you have more access to different treatments and ideas. But, of course, if you're not healing something deeper, nothing's going to work."

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 02, 2025 17:00 ET (22:00 GMT)

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