20 Actors Who Should Be On the Next White Lotus (Part Two)

Aaand we're back! Thanks to everyone who checked out part one :)

Here are my picks for the next round of guests on White Lotus. You know, that luxury resort chain with a weirdly high mortality rate:

Kaitlyn Dever

You know her from: Booksmart, The Last of Us, Justified, Unbelievable

Critic David Sims once wrote: "I bought all the Kaitlyn Dever stock after Justified and now I’m a millionaire."

Like Sims, my first exposure to Dever was her role as kidnapping victim turned weed queenpin Loretta McCready on Jusitfied, the ridiculously fun western crime series. I next saw Dever in Short Term 12, where she more than held her own against Brie Larson in a dark and grounded drama.

My point is that Dever can thrive in both naturalistic and genre stories, and she’d be able to thread the needle that White Lotus so carefully weaves between them.

Plus, she deserves a vacation after The Last of Us, as I’m sure people are being super chill and normal about her character.

Ken Leung

You know him from: Lost, Industry, That one episode of The Sopranos, Old

I was recently watched Big Joel's video essay about the live-action Avatar adaptation for Netflix. The essay was almost entirely negative, but at one point Joel stopped to say that he was really enjoying the performance of one of the secondary villains. This made me trust Big Joel even more because my takeaway from any Ken Leung project is that, at the very least, Ken Leung was good in it.

Growing up on Lost and X-Men, my feeling was always that Leung was the coolest dude in the world, his relaxed attitude and sardonic delivery implying an interesting life that existed long before the cameras started rolling. Leung has never given me reason to waiver in that belief, and I’m happy to see that he’s always working. Still, I won’t be happy until he gets a Goggins-sized moment in the sun, and I think The White Lotus is the best way for him to get it.

Lily Gladstone

You know her from: Killers of the Flower Moon, Certain Women, The Wedding Banquet, Billions

If one of TWL’s major themes is colonialism and commodification, how interesting would a season set in America be? Something that could help the momentum of the much needed influx of shows built around North American Indigenous people? Or is me suggesting this part of that exact same commodification? I’m not sure, smarter people than me can let me know.

Either way, get Lily Gladstone in there! Beyond her immense importance as a representational symbol, Gladstone is a deeply emotive and commanding performer, and I find any video of her talking to be strangely calming and hypnotic. I’d like to see her talents applied to something other than horrible tragedy, and a stay at TWL is a great way to do that.

Nia Long

You know her from: Boyz n the Hood, The Best Man, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Boiler Room

A mainstay of African-American cinema from the early 90’s through today, Nia Long is one of those actors who is so beautiful (and so often cast in bland love-interest roles) that it takes a while to realize how talented she actually is. But unlike, say, Charlize Theron, Long has never really been given the chance to prove herself. A naturalistic and compelling presence since 1991’s Boyz n the Hood, Long’s career appreciation moment is way overdue.

Orlando Jones

You know him from: MadTV, American Gods, Office Space, The Replacements

When I was a kid, I remember a distinct moment when I was allowed to start watching more “adult” comedies. Three I remember distinctly from this period were Office Space, Evolution, and Double Take. The three movies varied wildly in quality, but there was one consistently excellent quality: Orlando Jones.

A MadTV cast member, Jones was skilled at broad character comedy, but what struck me when I rewatched Double Take recently (something I don’t recommend doing), was how well Jones carried the movie as a leading man. It’s always confused me why he wasn’t a bigger deal, and I’ve mostly kept up with him through social media rather than his onscreen work.

Jones was famously fired from his critically acclaimed role on American Gods, and he pulled no punches in publicly accusing the showrunner of being racist. Jones is still a consistent TV guest star (he’s on Abbott Elementary every once in a while), but I can’t shake the feeling that he pissed off the establishment by speaking up. He deserved better past tense, and he deserves better, present and future. Get him a Hawiian shirt, stat.

Pom Klementieff

You know her from: Guardians of the Galaxy 2 & 3, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, Ingrid Goes West, Westworld

There’s nothing I like better than a good unhinged henchman. I was already a big fan of Pom Klementieff’s weird performance in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but she fully won me over with her unhinged, psychopathic hench(wo)man in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.

Klementieff sneers, laughs and slices her way through part one, and I’m excited to see her cut loose again in the newest installment. Weirdly though, this prank video she did with Simon Pegg was the thing that sold me the most on her range:

Make her the trophy girlfriend who finally kills Greg.

Regina Hall

You know her from: Scary Movie, Girl's Trip, Nine Perfect Strangers, Support the Girls

Regina Hall appreciation is something that’s so frustratingly close to mainstream.

Every once and a while, a compilation of her scenes from Scary Movie will go viral, and a commenter or two will shout her out by name. In 2018, she won some prominent critic’s awards for her work in Support the Girls, and a few years later, she co-hosted the Oscars. Somehow, the words in that sentence feel like they are in the wrong order.

If you’ve seen Hall’s turn as a beleaguered wing-restaurant manager in Support the Girls, you know that she deserved an Oscar nomination, and it’s been frustrating to watch her bubble just under the A-list for more than twenty years. Just have her reprise her character from Support the Girls in The White Lotus and get ready for Emmy season.

Saïd Taghmaoui

You know him from: La Haine, Wonder Woman, Three Kings, Lost

I was an adult before I saw La Haine, the heavy drama that launched French-Moroccan actor Saïd Taghmaoui's career. To me, he was the ultra-likeable and suave dude who spoke with a beautiful, implacable accent in Hollywood movies like Three Kings and GI Joe.

Taghmaoui looks much the same now as he did then, but bags under his eyes and grey in his beard have added some depth to his boyish charm. I know he’d crush it as the manager of the North African or Middle-Eastern branch of TWL, but in my experience you never have to justify Taghmoui on screen. Have him show up in a bar and the audience will greet him like an old friend.

Seann William Scott

You know him from: American Pie, Goon, The Rundown, Role Models

Forever cursed with the Stifler name, it’s long been my assertion that Seann William Scott has more to offer us than drinking his own pee (or whatever).

Though he’s very much playing a comedy character, the dramatic work that Scott pulls off in Goon is genuinely revelatory, but as far as I know no one has successfully capitalized on it. It’s been fifteen years since Scott showed us what he could really do, and I think it’s time coach White put him in.

Timothy Olyphant

You know him from: Deadwood, Justified, Santa Clarita Diet, The Mandalorian

If you know anything about me, this is the most predictable pick I could possibly make, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong! Like his Justified co-star Walton Goggins, Olyphant’s killer comic timing, effortless cool, and DILF good looks make him prime White Lotus material.

Though many of Olyphant’s characters compel with an ever present undercurrent of rage and violence, I’d be curious to see Olyphant play the laid back California dad he appears to be in interviews. Watch any clip of him on a talk show and tell me you can’t picture him ignoring his family on a beach. Mentally, he’s already there!

Thank you for reading my list. If you are Mike White and use any of my picks, you owe me a percentage.