‘The White Lotus’ star Jason Isaacs says record heat caused ‘everyone’ to ‘stink’ while filming intimate scenes

Jason Isaacs says shooting intimate scenes for The White Lotus season 3 got hot – too hot.

“By the end of each day, we’re just caked in sweat and makeup. You can peel your clothes off with a trowel. It melts your fillings,” Isaacs recently told TIME. “It would be churlish to complain, there are terrible things going on in the world, but we’ve all had enough.”

The worst part? “We’re doing intimate scenes, and you stink,” Isaacs recounted.

The Death of Stalin actor will appear as Timothy Ratliff in the upcoming third season of the popular HBO anthology drama. A trailer released Monday for the new season, which premieres on Feb. 16, depicts Ratliff as a wealthy business mogul fearful that shameful secrets will expose him and endanger his family (Parker Posey, Sam Nivola, and Sarah Catherine Hook).

But the primary on-set fears and anxieties centered on the heat, according to more White Lotus cast and crew than just Isaacs.

Series creator and showrunner Mike White described the filming conditions as “really f—ing hot,” and star Michelle Monaghan called it “the hottest I’ve ever felt.”

“From what I’ve heard, the second season was a lot more partying,” said Nivola, the son of actors Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer. “It’s honestly so hot here that it’s hard to drink or do anything like that that makes you feel dehydrated.”

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The first season of The White Lotus took viewers to the titular luxury resort chain’s Hawaii location in 2021. The next year, White plucked Jennifer Coolidge and Jon Gries from the season 1 cast and transported them to Sicily. The third season picks up in Thailand, and features Natasha Rothwell from season 1 as the only crossover star. The only crossover known so far, at least.

The White Lotus is White’s first TV project since the failed 2016 pilot Mamma Dallas, which starred Augustus Prew as a drag queen hired as a nanny.

Teasing what viewers can expect from The White Lotus season 3, White told Deadline in 2023, “The first season we highlighted money and then the second season is sex and I think the third season, it would be maybe a kind of satirical and funny look at death in Eastern religion and spirituality – it feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at White Lotus.”