‘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 [email protected].

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?