The White Lotus returns with its second season on HBO Sunday night, and, this time around, the show trades Hawaii for the Italian island Sicily.
A new location also means a new cast, who spoke with ABC Audio about what to expect from the new bunch of episodes from creator Mike White.
Aubrey Plaza joins the show as Harper, a woman processing her husband's recent professional success and wealth. She recounts the details of working in Sicily, noting that the “energy to the volcano” loomed large.
“You can taste it in the wine – literally,” Plaza said. “The wine in Sicily tastes like volcanic ash, and it’s an acquired taste. And I’ve come to really love it.”
Michael Imperioli also joins the cast, and he says he wishes he was still filming in Italy.
“We were living and working in a hotel that was closed to the public,” Imperioli said. “I’d be perfectly happy staying there if we could keep the story going and the show going.”
According to Plaza, “every actor wanted” to be a part of the show’s first season, which won 10 Emmys last month.
“Mike White had the golden ticket to Hawaii,” Plaza said. “If you got that golden ticket, you were out. You were out of the quarantine. Everybody wanted it.”
Jennifer Coolidge got one of those golden tickets last year. She reprises her Emmy-winning role as flighty heiress Tanya McQuoid in season 2, and she says the shores of Maui gave off a foreboding energy in the first season.
“Sicily has that, too,” Coolidge said. “You feel many things when you’re in Sicily. And it’s really like Sicily is another person, and a person that’s sort of unpredictable. They’re both equally mesmerizing. I can’t believe we lucked out. We got both places.”