“It was written that something sexual was happening between us, and it was shocking to Shane and Belinda ,” Bartlett says. And the best part? It wasn’t even scripted. The scene, which is quite startling even by HBO standards, lit the internet on fire. Armond’s unwillingness to own up to this mistake - and Shane’s unwillingness to let it go - launches a series-long conflict that begins as simple skepticism but soon escalates to all-out war.Ī pivotal scene in this rivalry comes at the end of Episode 4, when Shane barges into Armond’s office as his face is lodged between the butt cheeks of his employee Dillon. His primary conflict is with spoiled man-child Shane (Jake Lacy), whose ridiculously expensive Pineapple Suite has been double-booked and given to a German couple. On some level, “The White Lotus” revolves around Armond’s struggle to keep a mask over his nervous breakdown and sobriety slip. “I was really shocked when it was Armond - shocked because I wasn’t expecting it and shocked because it’s very intense and tragic.” “I really took the bait about it being Rachel,” he says, referring to Alexandra Daddario’s character.
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But having only read the pilot, Bartlett was completely unaware that his character is the dead body teased throughout the series - a twist he found out on the plane to Hawaii to film.
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He immediately began formulating ideas about how to approach Armond and what his backstory might look like. It turns out that tone was what Mike was going for as well.” I wanted to anchor him in something that felt real, even though he’s quite a larger-than-life character. He has all these big aspects to him that I didn’t want to shy away from. But what struck me is that I didn’t want to play Armond as some sort of caricature of a guy on the edge, or some stereotype of a campy, gay man.
“Or a gift from Mike White, who is kind of godlike.”ĭescribing his first impressions of the script, Bartlett recalls, “There was just so much to play with, and it was very joyful and funny. I wanted to give it a shot,” he says.īartlett moved to the United States in 2000 and made waves a few years later playing a memorable Australian shoe importer in an episode of “Sex and the City.” In the years since, he made his mark as Dom on HBO’s “Looking” and Mouse on Netflix’s “Tales of the City” reboot, all while securing guest spots on such series as “White Collar,” “The Good Wife,” “Damages” and “Nashville.”Īs the pandemic hit and Bartlett, like the rest of the world, prepared for an industry-wide shutdown, a script for “The White Lotus” landed in his lap like a “gift from God,” he says. My exams were suffering because I wanted to be an actor and go to acting school. In what sounds like a cliché from a movie, he recalls pondering life’s big questions while walking down to the beach one day. Growing up in Western Australia, Bartlett began auditioning while completing his final exams in high school. In fact, he’s endured “existential crises” every four or five years: “I would say, ‘Is this really what I should be doing?’ And there were a few times along the way where I thought, ‘Maybe not.’” “There were times when people told me, ‘You’re getting too old, you’re obviously not going to be super successful.’ And I did second guess myself.” “There have been times where I haven’t worked much - sometimes long periods,” he says. Instead, it merely focuses on how Quinn doesn’t want to go back because there’s nothing to live for back home.The role earned him an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts prize and Critics’ Choice Award, but Bartlett’s career hasn’t always been a smooth journey. He constantly reiterates to his family that he wants to stay back on the island, explore the seas, and truly live! Instead, it merely focuses on how Quinn doesn’t want to go back because there’s nothing to live for back home. Though we could see him approaching the men as a sign of his attraction towards them, the finale makes no indication of that. As the narrative progresses, he even starts canoeing with a crew of men. We then see him deliberately sleep on the shore, and he is not really worried about his gadget. He develops a liking towards nature and the ocean especially. One of the first signs of this is when he goes to sleep on the beach the first time, he sort of enjoys looking at dolphins jumping in and out of the ocean against a picturesque horizon. In a social satire about how the rich and privileged will never change, Quinn appears to be breaking the cycle. Quinn seemed one of the most irrelevant characters at the show’s beginning, but it turns out he does seem to stand out from the rest of the characters.