Jason Isaacs On Timothy’s “Bliss” In The ‘The White Lotus’ Finale & Vindication For His North Carolina Accent [Interview]

So in that context, when I caught up with Sarah, she said the scripts were longer for each episode than you would expect, and that as a cast, you all knew not everything was going to make it in the final series.

It sucks, but that’s the reality of it. Yeah.

READ MORE: “The White Lotus” breakout Sarah Catherine Hook cannot escape “Piper, No!”

Was that always in the back of your head? “I don’t know if this is actually going to make it?” Or do you have to just assume when you’re calibrating the role, all this is going to get in if that arc makes it, it makes it, if it doesn’t, I can’t control it.

A great question. I think what happens is, first of all, you put out in your mind that some of these scenes might not make it because otherwise you can’t play every scene like, “Well, O.K., I’m going to do this scene that way just in case the one after doesn’t get in.” There’s no way to do that. I’ve done much, much lower budget things where you go, “That scene is out of focus. We’ve got to take that information and put it into this scene, and we’re losing that location tomorrow.” So, I’ve done that kind of thing where you’re revising the script all the time. The thing that I did, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before, was be aware that this piece has so many different stories in it and that the tone, which is always a director’s choice, was down to Mike. And so he would ask for variations within a scene and also shout out mad suggestions behind the monitor that you had to incorporate while you were on your feet. And normally, what you get hired for as an actor, it feels like what you get hired for is your choices. I’m in charge. I’m stewarding this character from beginning to end. And although we shoot out of order, I know how angry to be when I come through the other side of the door. And I don’t think I’ve ever shared with the director so much to have every choice. Not because things will be missing, but because he didn’t know when things have changed and rearranged what tone, what you want to cut from and to, whether you want to have a very intense scene between people, or whether it should be played more comically, whether quite how miserable someone should be. And so I did something, it’s not that I don’t trust directors, but they don’t generally need or require this much choice in the edit. But I wanted to give Mike everything I possibly could that he asked for and more, because there aren’t many stories like this. It’s not an anthology. He cuts between so many stories. And one of my best friends is Ol Parker, who wrote “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” films and I talked with him a lot when he was writing those scripts about how long you wanted to be with Judi Dench before you cut to Tom Wilkinson, whether you could stay with each story for 15 minutes or whether it’s three minutes. And I remember how much it changed. I worked with John Madden on “Operation Mincemeat” and how much John changed in the edit. How long they thought they were going to be with each story, and how much that changed the tone when you cut between them. And I’d never felt like I had a collaborator whom I was prepared to share this much with before.

With everything happening to Timothy, there are two scenarios. One, after a lifetime of evading everything that could have possibly gone wrong in his business, it’s finally catching up with him. Or this is once again something he is trying to hide from his family.

I think it’s a third option. One of the things I talked about with Mike quite a lot, and we changed a bit in the scripts, is that the first version I read had him getting a phone call, and it was all over. And then he was just struggling a lot. And I said to Mike, “Do you think that maybe someone like this normally solves it? They can jam it up in court, they can throw money at the problem, they can spike stories, they own the owners and the newspaper.” And he was very open to all that. And so we changed a lot of the phone calls so that it ramped up, and then that even if they take money off him, he’s a stupendously rich man. And although he might not be able to work in finance anymore, he’d have enough money for generations of his family to be fine. And so we made sure that the dialogue made it clear that everything due to the new kind of different sanctions and stuff, and the way they deal with Russia and drug dealers, that they will be able to seize all of his assets. And we put those lines in about the car and the house, and the trust funds. So it was clear that what was going to happen to him, the consequences would be utterly catastrophic, with no flexibility in it at all. So, first of all, there was the ramping up of that. I think that in his life, I don’t think he’s not made his money out of criminal behavior, particularly this. This didn’t even feel like a major infraction of the rules to him. Those tax rules are bendable and avoidable most of the time. And if you get caught doing something, you pay someone to say it goes away, you make a settlement. And people, it’s just part of the rough and tumble of doing business. And one of the many fabulous ironies in his journey, and it was a stupid favor he did for someone that paid him what to him was pennies, will bring his whole empire down. Nonetheless, when it starts happening, it’s going to be a pain. He’s going to have to take a reputation or a bit of reputational damage, or he’s going to have to use up somebody’s favors with newspaper owners, or he’s going to have to spend a bunch of money on lawyers. So it only dawns on him slowly, incrementally, that there’s no way out. And we wanted to hold that back until there was a point at which there’s nothing he can do.

Suddenly, anything is family, talking about anything that’s going on around him seems surreal to him because he knows they’re all headed off the cliff, and their lives are over. Even Piper wanting to live in a monastery. They won’t be able to afford the airfare, they won’t be able to afford their cell phones. That was the plan we made. So, what I was doing in my head, and this was my anxiety all the way through or certainly coming up to doing the job, I was running through all the scenarios in my head. This is a guy who’s an alpha male with enormous entitlement, whose resources have meant that he’s never really faced any kind of problem. And so he’s continually in his head trying to problem solve until it becomes clear there is no way out. But it doesn’t stop his head from working that way. And he’s playing out all the scenarios. The other people he’s seen, what the shame will be like, what prison will be like, poverty would be like. Can he picture himself driving an Uber? Can he picture his wife folding T-shirts in Old Navy? What are his children going to do? And one by one, they come to him and they tell him that they couldn’t possibly live. They don’t understand what the consequences are. They couldn’t possibly live being poor. And in his adult and disturbed state of mind, that seems like it makes good sense to him. And people ask me when he became murderous. He’s not murderous. These are mercy killings as far as he’s concerned, where he is, that he’s saving them, the precipitous plummet into shame and degradation that they’ll be facing.

Certainly, this is the brilliance of Mike’s writing, the most unlikely character for it to happen to. He has a massive spiritual change, and it’s the reason Mike sets it in Thailand. People go there for some kind of enlightenment and the rich version of it, which is to rent the five-star version for two or three days, but not really change their lives. And Tim, who doesn’t even pretend he wants that, just wants to work out in the gym and overeat probably and ogle the young Thai girls on the beach or whatever he wants to do. He actually goes on a massive spiritual journey. And at first, when the monk talks about the drops of water returning to the ocean, that seems like it might be a blessed relief for everyone to die and not have to face what they’re facing. But then, in the moment when he was about to kill them all, something miraculous, something spiritual hit him. And he realizes he loves life, and they love life more, and they will and should face fate, and it will be the best thing that ever happened to them. Not the worst thing that ever happened to them. And then Mike, of course, makes me think I’ve killed Lachlan by accident. But on that boat at the end, he’s so blissfully happy when he sees the drops of water going back in, and he knows that he no longer has to struggle to feel better and maintain that gap between him and everyone else, that he’s not better than anyone. He is of humanity, not above humanity. And he looks at his family, who are going to really struggle, have a very hard time, and he thinks the very best thing that will ever happen to any of them is that they too will rejoin the human race, and whatever the consequences fate brings them will be the best thing. There’s utter bliss. When I looked at that water, and I didn’t do much, I didn’t grin from ear to ear, but I felt it, and Mike gave me that, which is such a gift, and I hope the audience got it, but that’s certainly what I was feeling.

So, looking at the entire family, I believe the kids would face it and survive, and move on. But Victoria, I’m not sure Parker’s character would. What do you think?

Well, I don’t think it’s going to be easy for any of them. I think it’s going to be very, very difficult because I’m sure there are statues to the Ratliffs in town. And I’m sure there are wings at Duke that will be renamed and all the rest of it, and he’s going to go to prison and he’s going to be penniless. Yeah, he doesn’t think it’s going to be easy for any of them, but to let go of the obligation to be better than other people, to make other people feel worse than you. I mean, really, for all the family, Victoria’s the one who needs it most. She’s the one most obsessed with status. And although it’ll be the hardest for her if she gets through it, she has the most to gain from it, he thinks in that moment.

“The White Lotus” is available on Max

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