The White Lotus 3: Walton Goggins reacts to Sam Rockwell’s denied monologue
“Sam is one of my best friends in life, so I was both nervous and relieved to do that with him …”
He made a surprise appearance and at least spectacular. The excellent Sam Rockwell – Oscar for best supporting role for Three Billboards in 2018 – landed in season 3 of The White Lotusto deliver a particularly strong and unarken speech. His character, Frank, old friend of Rick (interpreted by Walton Goggins), started in a monologue of almost 5 minutes, who left his comrade completely mouth. A natural reaction for Goggins, which says that it has been shown by the speech of his Rockwell friend, as much as Rick was surprised by Frank:
“I discovered this monologue by reading the scripts two or three months before the start of filming, and I was completely breathtaking by Mike White and what he had to say about the world, on these characters, and in reality on all of us, through these dialogues”tells Goggins to Entertainment Weekly. “I read it again and again, constantly. And when Sam signed for the role – Sam is one of my best friends, and Leslie (Bibb), his partner (who also plays in the series), is also one of my best friends – so I was both nervous and relieved to do that with him …”
The monologue in question reveals that Frank has changed since his last meeting with Rick. Formerly inveterate a birthday party, Frank is now sober, Buddhist and totally transparent about his addiction to sex, who turned to the identity crisis when he moved to Thailand and felt the desire to become the young Asian women who attracted him so much. Rick tries to listen to the vulnerable confession of his friend without reacting, but his face betrays his emotions when Frank describes his adventures with “ladyboys”. Then it turned into an obsession where he hired white men who looked like him to sleep with him, while making up and dressing himself as a “Ladyboy”. “Am I a mature white man inside too? Or at the bottom, could I be an Asian girl?” wonders Frank. “I don’t know. I tried to kiss my way for an answer. Then I understood that I had to stop the drugs, stop girls, stop trying to be a girl … I turned to Buddhism.”
A speech to say the least destabilizing. But Walton Goggins knew how essential this scene was in the Rick’s journey, not easy to play against a friend of real life:
“”We each know the tics of the other, and it is my hero, I did not want to disappoint him. But I also wanted to play with him. And two minutes after our first conversation on this, it was as if we had found the key. This is the moment when I took the most fun on The White Lotus, working with it on these scenes. “
Over the first four episodes, Rick appears as an emotionally blocked man, despite the desperate efforts of his young girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) to provoke a reaction at home. But this interaction with Frank finally allowed him to reveal what he hid under the surface.
“We feel a complicity and a story between them, and I hope it is reflected on the screen”, explains Goggins. “”And suddenly, this taciturn character, locked in his pain … Rick has only Chelsea, the love of his life, but he is unable to speak to him other than in bed. And then, facing Frank, we suddenly discover a man who has a personality. A guy who can speak. Suddenly, he is interested in someone else (…) I loved what this monologue says about Buddhism, on spirituality, on letting go of the desires and traps of this world, to access a deeper understanding of existence. “
Season 3 of White Lotus will continue next Monday in France on Max.
