‘The White Lotus:’ Aubrey Plaza Thinks Harper Is Still “Disgusted” by Cameron - Vanity Fair

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Aubrey Plaza drops by Still Watching to discuss how she really feels about Ethan’s exploits and Harper’s sex drive, and chat about her Gotham-nominated performance in Emily the Criminal.

By Chris Murphy

December 5, 2022

‘The White Lotus Aubrey Plaza Thinks Harper Is Still “Disgusted” by Cameron

Aubrey Plaza does not mince words when it comes to how she feels about Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Cameron’s (Theo James) big night out on The White Lotus. “Doing Molly with prostitutes in your room and being there while your friend is having sex with a prostitute…” she says on Still Watching. “I don’t know. I’m old-fashioned, I guess. But to me, that fucking sucks.”

You don’t have to be old-fashioned to empathize with Plaza’s Harper, who may or may not have decided to take Daphne’s (Meghann Fahy) advice and get even by having a little fling of her own with Cameron.

Or does she? Mike White doesn’t provide any answers in the season’s penultimate episode, instead allowing Ethan to spiral after finding Harper back in their room with the door locked and Cameron suspiciously next door. Would Harper be justified in having a dalliance with Cameron, given the state of her relationship with Ethan? “Sex? Ugh. I don’t know about that,” Plaza says. “I mean, that’s the whole thing about this show, and that’s the whole thing about Mike. Mike White’s writing is that there is no wrong, there is no right. It’s, like, the gray area, you know? Nobody’s better than the other person.” Speaking of gray area, Plaza also discusses her Gotham-nominated performance as credit card fraudster Emily in the indie Emily the Criminal, which hits Netflix on December 7.

Over in Palermo, Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) had a wild night of her own with Quentin (Tom Hollander) and his “high-end gays,” while her assistant, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), had a less than magical evening with Quentin’s “nephew” Jack (Leo Woodall). Fantasies were shattered for the Di Grasso family as well, after their sojourn to their ancestral home ended with Lucia (Simona Tabasco) getting whisked away by the mysterious Alessio, and Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) receives some devastating news about her employees Isabella and Rocco.

With one episode left to go in the series, Still Watching cohosts Richard Lawson and Chris Murphy chat about the episode and lock in their final theories about who does not make it out of The White Lotus alive. Listen below, and find a partial transcript of the Plaza interview as well. For your own questions, comments, and final theories, please email stillwatchingpod@gmail.com.

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Vanity Fair: When we get to episode six, Harper sort of has nothing to lose anymore. It feels like Harper has reached a point where she is completely done. Can you talk to me a little bit about the beginning of episode six? It begins with that amazing scene where you are like, 'Ethan, we're not attracted to each other anymore.' It's devastating, and then [Harper] sort of spins it to be like, 'Actually you're not attracted to me.' But it feels like Harper's saying, 'I'm not into you anymore, Ethan.'

Aubrey Plaza: Really? Ok. See, that's the thing. I don't know how it's put together. In the fifth episode, she's kind of confronted with what she thinks is the truth of what happened. But I think when these kinds of things happen in relationships, it's never really about that, you know? It's always about something bigger. There's always macro issues that are really the issue. Then these little things that happen in relationships, they kind of just spark the larger stuff. I think [episode] six is the first time that you get to hear what's really going on with these two people. Cause you wonder the whole time, like, ‘Why are they not having sex? What is going on?' It's kind of the first time that they really have it out, right?

I didn't even think about how their sexual issues probably extend way beyond The White Lotus.

Oh, definitely. For me, it was important that when they show up on the boat that they're not in a good place. I think that that's how the stakes become higher for me anyways. If you treat it like that—if it's not just a bad vacation, you know, it's a bad time in their marriage and they just happen to be going to the most beautiful place on a beautiful vacation, but they're just not in a good place. It's like that old Adam Sandler SNL sketch that he did like in the eighties or nineties or whatever, where it's like ‘Rome is beautiful, but if you're sad at your house, you're gonna be sad in Rome too.’ So, it's about that. But yes, this six episode is gnarly because the truth's being told, I guess. And they're saying some stuff that they probably have never said to each other before that was excruciating.

Some of those truths that are said between Harper and Ethan—when she says, “wanting and loving are two different things” [and] “maybe something has died between us”—It feels like you can't really come back from that. Do you think their relationship is kaput or do you think they can work on it?

I think you can always work on it. It's a choice. There's no right or wrong. I think that's the thing that's so scary about marriage— it's a lot of work. And if you decide to do the work, then you go on. And if you decide that you don't want to anymore, then it's over.

It gets more complicated because you have this wild card external factor of Cameron. He's like disgusting and grotesque, but also so magnetic and handsome. My interpretation of Harper and Cameron's relationship is that Harper's kind of disgusted by him, but she's also kind of into him. And that's gonna make it sort of difficult for her and Ethan.

Yeah, I think he represents kind of the other side. He represents the uninhibited, unapologetically freer side of things. I don't think Harper's actually attracted him. I think she's disgusted by him.

Really?

Well, yeah. Just in terms of her personality, I don't think he's her type, you know? But I think that he's hitting on a nerve with her, which is that she wants to fuck, you know? Sorry, but it's just like we're all animals. It's hard when you're in a long term relationship. It's like you stop having sex, or the sex gets boring or whatever it is. It's just human nature, you know? It's like your pheromones meet somebody and maybe they're not your type or whatever, but it hits on a thing with her where she's like, 'I don't wanna think.'