The British actor has made a name for himself both in front and behind the camera in recent years. In 2016, he wrote, directed and starred in the Channel 4 miniseries “Flowers” opposite Colman, which was nominated for a BAFTA award for comedy. In 2020, Sharpe won a best supporting actor BAFTA for his supporting role in “Giri/Haji,” his last acting role before “The White Lotus.”
“It’s such a delicious setup that [White] has created, where you’ve got these two very different couples who have gone on holiday almost by mistake,” Sharpe says. “Ethan’s taking it from all sides a lot of the time. His relationship with Cameron is often quite demeaning, and he’s also slightly low status even within his marriage. So it’s like, well, where does all of that go?”“They’ve recently come into a lot of money.
“I definitely had conversations like that with some people who were feeling that [pressure] at the beginning of the process,” Sharpe says. “It’s related to the first season — same concept, and we’ll have that same essential Mike White tone within it — but it does feel like a new adventure.