While there were sympathetic characters in The White Lotus Season 1, I felt like Season 2 really benefited from the Italian hookers/scammers Mia and Lucia, wonderfully played by Simona Tabasco and Beatrice Grannò. Even when they were scamming and drugging people, you really rooted for them and I loved their “happy ending.” I feel similarly about Season 3’s “heroine” Chelsea, played by British actress Aimee Lou Wood. Chelsea is at the Thailand resort with her boyfriend/partner played by Walton Goggins in all of his sleazy glory. If anything happens to Chelsea, I will burn down The White Lotus myself. Anyway, Aimee is getting a lot of attention because of TWL and she’s loving it, just as she loved the whole experience. She was already a huge fan of the show. Some highlights from her THR interview:

She was already obsessed with TWL: “The show was a complete hyperfixation of mine, and it was all I would talk about. And then, on season two, Will Sharpe turned up, and I know him and I thought, ‘Maybe I could be in this?’” Between shooting [Sex Education] scenes with co-stars like Ncuti Gatwa and Gillian Anderson, Wood would slip off the set to stream episodes of White Lotus. When season two finished, she texted her agents, asking them to try to get her an audition. “And then I was like, ‘Actually, I don’t want to do it.’ It puts so much pressure on me. I really tried to trick myself out of [sending an audition] self-tape.”

She loves her character: Wood ended up reading for the part of Chelsea, one of what Wood calls season three’s “regular” people (she’s also from Manchester), a working-class girl trying to enjoy a Thailand vacation with her increasingly testy older boyfriend (Walton Goggins). Wood thinks of her as the “misfit” of the group, and says she instantly connected to the character when she discovered in the script that Chelsea was an astrology buff. “I think a good word for her is unfazed. Which is funny because I’m severely fazed. I have a Scorpio moon. But playing her felt like a little bit of a holiday, even when her radical optimism tips into the delulu — I think you need to be a bit delulu these days just to stay alive.”

She found out about her casting while out at a pub with some friends. “I started screaming, so it was very obvious that something had happened. And then, of course, I told the waiter, so the bar put on the bloody theme song for everyone to dance to.”

Figuring out what to do within a mostly American cast: “These people live in Holly­wood. I live in my little flat in South East London, and I’m so British in my sensibility that I wasn’t sure how to handle being around so many people who are so front-footed and confident. All I ever do is take the piss out of myself. Even the way [White Lotus fans] are talking about me and my teeth — that I don’t have veneers or Botox — it feels a bit rebellious.”

American culture rubbed off on Wood: “I would be more confident now to talk to a director about an idea I have, or just to make sh-t happen. The first thing I did out of drama school was a play, and I remember thinking it was so cool that I was getting paid for it. Then I got Sex Education and thought it was just a fluke; even when it erupted, I figured my success would pass. It was basically just last week that I woke up and went, ‘What the hell is my life?’ ”

[From THR]

She absolutely sounds like her character. Maybe a more neurotic version of her character. But she’s absolutely charming and this is so true – “But playing her felt like a little bit of a holiday, even when her radical optimism tips into the delulu — I think you need to be a bit delulu these days just to stay alive.” That’s very true and I love that her character is just like, sure, whatever, I’m along for the ride, let’s have fun. I saw Walton Goggins talking about Aimee and he basically made it sound like he was very protective of her and that he adored working with her. Their scenes together are masterclass! And the physical comedy too, especially in the third episode!

Photos courtesy Fabio Lovino/HBO/Avalon and Avalon Red.