Dear Gossips,

A friend of mine called on Friday to obsess about The White Lotus. She wanted to give a Ted Talk on the opening sequence – there’s been a lot said about the music and the memes set to the music but not enough, in her opinion, on the wallpaper, and the symbolism embedded in the images, although Salon just published a piece about how each character is represented, the most obvious being the rotting balls of fruit and Steve Zahn’s name appearing beside them, LOL.

Steve Zahn's name in the opening credits for The White Lotus

We have more to say on The White Lotus later, but for how long will we be talking about the series? As my friend also added, during her Ted Talk intermission, she’s worried that since it’s not eligible for Emmys consideration this year, voters will forget about it next year, unless of course season two is underway, or promotion for it is underway, which will put it back in the headlines. Then again, I’m not sure awareness for it has quite peaked yet. There are a LOT of people who still haven’t heard of it. I was on a call the other day with a team of people who work in television and I tried to introduce it into the conversation and was met with silence. If we’re using Succession as a comparison, I feel like that show only gained momentum after the first season had concluded and the second season was about to start. The first season of Succession also premiered in the summer, in 2018, after the Emmy eligibility period, and as we know, by the time the next Emmys came around, it was definitely a contender, precisely because the second season started during the Emmys voting period in August of 2019.

But can we talk about Murray Bartlett? He and Jennifer Coolidge, at least in my feeds, were the ones who seemed to be getting the promotional assignments in the weeks leading up to the finale. Murray’s showing up a lot today, I’ve already read several interviews with him, including this one with Vulture and here’s another with Salon. The entire cast of The White Lotus is outstanding but if we had to name one breakout star, it would be him, right? As IndieWire notes, Murray is finally getting his due, a “much deserved mid-career breakout”. Not that he hasn’t been working but this is the kind of role on the kind of show that puts you on the list. I wasn’t all that familiar with him before The White Lotus and now? If you tell me Murray Bartlett is in a show or a movie, I’m immediately interested.

Same goes for Alexandra Daddario who was amazing as Rachel. Again, not someone who was much on my radar but as frustrating as Rachel was as a character, that was the point, and Alexandra played it perfectly. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot more decision-makers and storytellers are seeing what she can bring to a role and a project in different light now.

Here’s Alexandra at the Jennifer Klein Day of Indulgence event this weekend.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Alexandra Daddario Gossip

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