The White Lotus Video: Carrie Coon And Leslie Bibb Break Down That Awkward Trump Talk And The Ladies' Savage Rivalry
The three vacationing ladies on The White Lotus may have flown all the way to Thailand, but they still can't avoid talking about Donald Trump.
This week, Kate felt the cold shoulder from her lifelong pals Jaclyn and Laurie after she let it slip that she's a little more conservative now than they remember — and may have voted for Trump for President? (She's never said for sure, but her silence spoke volumes.) Leslie Bibb, who plays Kate, laughs when it's brought up in the interview with TVLine above: "I'm not going to ruin vacation! I'm not going to ruin this interview!" She does sympathize with Kate, though ("There are decent people who vote this way, and there's decent people who vote that way... It doesn't mean they're a bad person"), adding that series creator Mike White does like to "poke the bear" with hot topics like this.
Carrie Coon, who plays Laurie, admits that the political discussion did throw Laurie for a loop: "I think for an East Coast liberal lawyer, that was pretty triggering for her. Absolutely." But it's more complicated than that, she notes: "Am I just gonna dismiss a person I love because I disagree with them?" She concedes that "the stakes are very high" in our current political climate, "but if we can't have those conversations with people we love, then we can't have them with anyone... We have to be willing to see through our assumptions about other people."
Plus, Coon and Bibb addressed the subtle rivalry that has emerged between Kate, Laurie and Jaclyn during their vacation together. They may gush about how close they are and how much they love each other, but they've also snuck in little digs at each other along the way, with definite fissures appearing within the group.
"Everybody feels left out!" Coon points out, with Bibb adding: "I think it's this thing that society also teaches women: There's a competition, and there's not enough to go around... It's, like, driven into us from a small age." Coon likens it to the Buddhist concept of "comparing mind," where we can't help but compare ourselves to others to see where we fit in: "They're all sort of re-entrenched in some old storytelling, and it's getting them into trouble."