Looks like what happens in Thailand doesn’t always stay in Thailand.
“The White Lotus” Season 3 was filled with a slew of headline-making, shock-inducing storylines and deaths.
But some viewers have decided to take the on-screen drama off-screen and into real life, reading into what may have happened between the ensemble cast during their seven months filming in Thailand.
While the internet is buzzing with theories on what happened between the cast members, Jason Isaacs has a message for “amateur Sherlock Holmes.”
“First of all, it’s none of your business,” the actor, who portrayed businessman and father Timothy, said on an April 9 episode of SiriusXM’s “The Happy Hour.” “Nobody has the slightest clue what they’re talking about.”
Why did he feel the need to address the matter? Read on to learn more about what the internet believes has been brewing between “The White Lotus” cast, and what the actors have shared before and after the April 6 finale.
Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Internet sleuths began speculating about the status of Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood’s relationship after they paid tribute to their characters, as well as their experience on “The White Lotus,” without tagging each other.
In his April 6 post about their characters on Instagram, Goggins did shout out Wood, writing, “Thank you Aimee Lou for being my partner… a journey I will never forget.” Wood posted a photo of her with Goggins on April 8 with the caption, “A perfect storm.”
The two are not following each other on Instagram, but follow other “White Lotus” Season 3 cast members. Goggins also previously had a slideshow of photos with Wood pinned to his Highlights on Instagram, which is no longer available to view.
Fans took note of the lack of tags and follows. “Why did you unfollow each other?” one person asked on Goggins’ post.
Additionally, Goggins and Wood had different reactions to the divisive April 12 “SNL” political spoof called “The White Potus.” The sketch was a political take on the Trump administration and poked fun at Wood by having cast member Sarah Sherman wear prosthetic teeth.
Wood called out the sketch and called it “mean and unfunny.” Meanwhile, Goggins commented that the sketch amazing on the “SNL” Instagram account.
“Hahahahahhahaha Amazzzingggg,” he wrote in a since-deleted comment.
TODAY.com has reached out to Wood and Goggins for comment.
Creator Mike White and composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer
Composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer said in a New York Times that he was quitting and not returning for the show’s fourth season. The creative said that he had been having disagreements with Mike White since the show’s first season, which aired in 2021.
He recalled people being “furious” about the change of the theme song for Season 3, which didn’t include the fan-favorite “ooh-loo-loo-loos.”
“I texted the producer and I told him that it would be great to, at some point, give them the longer version with the ooh-loo-loo-loos, because people will explode if they realize that it was going there anyway,” he said. “He thought it was a good idea. But then Mike cut that — he wasn’t happy about that.”
Tapia de Veer added, “I mean, at that point, we already had our last fight forever, I think. So he was just saying no to anything.” He then uploaded his longer version to his YouTube.
White, on his end, responded to Tapia de Veer quitting, saying an interview with Howard Stern on April 8, that he “honestly” didn’t know what happened.
“Except now I’m reading his interviews because he decides to do some PR campaign about him leaving the show,” White said. “I don’t think he respected me.”
White claimed that they “never really even fought” and said the composer “wasn’t a team player and that he wanted to do it his way. I was thrown that he would go to The New York Times to s— on me and the show three days before the finale,” he said. “It was kind of a b—- move.”
Jason Isaacs stirs the pot with his comments across interviews
February 2025: He was involved in off-screen drama, he says
In an interview with The Guardian, published in February 2025, Isaacs called the set “a theater camp,” as well as “an open prison camp.”
“You couldn’t avoid one other. There are tensions and difficulties, I don’t know if they spilled from on screen to off-screen, or if it would have happened anyway,” he said. “There were alliances that formed and broke, romances that formed and broke, friendships that formed and broke. It’s a long period of time for people to be away from their family with an open bar and all the wildness being in Thailand allows.”
He then got candid about the instances that even White and producer David Bernad witnessed.
“I can’t pretend I wasn’t involved in some off-screen drama,” Isaacs said. “I can’t speak for them, but I imagine they think it feeds into the on-screen drama, and they might well be right. I think the heat contributed to these fissures appearing.”
At the time, the actor believed that they would put their differences behind them at the premiere.
“We’ll all see one other again (for the premiere) and I’m sure we’ll be hugging and kissing and remembering it fondly. But there were times when things were not quite so fond,” he said.
“I was in some ways used to it, but within a couple of weeks my wife (who was with him on set and used to be an actor) went, ‘Some of these people are f—— mad.’ I said, ‘No, it’s just a bunch of actors away on location, love. You’ve forgotten what it’s like.’”
March 2025: Jason Isaacs says the set was like ‘White Lotus,’ with ‘fewer deaths and just as much drama’
The actor continued to spill just enough tea to keep fans interested. In a March interview with Vulture, Isaacs once again touched on the workplace dynamics.
“It wasn’t a holiday. Some people got very close, there were friendships that were made and friendships that were lost. All the things you would imagine with a group of people unanchored from their home lives on the other side of the world, in the intense pressure cooker of the working environment with eye-melting heat and insects and late nights,” he said.
“They say in the show, ‘What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand,’ but there’s an off-screen ‘White Lotus’ as well, with fewer deaths but just as much drama,” he added.
When asked to elaborate on the drama he said, he would “absolutely not.”
“I became very close to some people and less close to others,” was all he added. “But we still all had that experience together and there’s a certain level of discretion required.”
April 2025: Jason Isaacs says there were issues, but it’s ‘none of your business’
Isaacs addressed the chatter his comments were generating head-on in an April 9 interview on SiriusXM’s “The Happy Hour.”
“Like anywhere you go for the summer, there’s friendships, there’s romances, there’s arguments, there’s cliques that form and break and reform and stuff like that. I’m careful,” Isaacs said. “I’m not stupid. I look at the Internet.”
“And all these amateur Sherlock Holmes out there and nobody has the slightest clue what they’re talking about,” he continued. “People who think they’re onto something, it then gets magnified … I’m talking about people you’ve never met before half the time, in different departments and the people in the hair and costume and in the accounts department and stuff.”
He added that any drama “it’s none of your business,” before acknowledging that being on set “wasn’t a holiday.”
“People think we were on a seven-month holiday, and believe me, it felt like work a lot of the time. It was insanely hot, and there’s all the normal social tensions, you get anywhere,” he continued, before sending a message to people. “And for all of you who think you’ve cracked it by something you think someone has posted, or who’s in the photo or not … you’re just so far from the truth.”
Producer David Bernad hinted that actors took on their characters’ personalities
Producer Bernad reflected on workplace drama in the same The Guardian interview Isaacs first shared some set secrets.
“Whether it’s subconscious or conscious, people take on the persona of their character. Like any workplace, if you spend that much time together, people start to get annoyed with one other,” Bernad said, also touching on the heat in real life and on the screen.
“That’s another aspect of the show that’s unique. On normal productions, you work, then you go home to your family,” he said. “Here you work, and you go home to the same people.”
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