Now that The White Lotus Season 3 is in the books, we know who’s dead, who’s not, and who’s possibly on the run from the law, and I’m already ready to start thinking about Season 4 of the HBO hit. In addition to wondering where the show might be filmed, I’ve found myself wondering about NBA legend Phil Jackson. Here’s how the Hall of Fame coach fits in. I promise it’s not totally random.
How Phil Jackson Helped Inspire Mike White To Create The White Lotus
One of The White Lotus’ co-producers, Dave Bernad, made an appearance on The Bill Simmons Podcast, where he talked about how the show’s creator, Mike White, came up with the premise for dark comedy. It all started in 2008 in Tarifa, Spain. Bernad was White’s assistant at the time, and White first told him about his idea for a show based on a young couple on a honeymoon in Europe when the groom returns but the wife does not, setting up the mystery. That was the original kernel of the idea that eventually became The White Lotus a dozen years later, but at first, HBO wasn’t interested in it, so they rejected the show.
So, where does Phil Jackson fit in? Well, part of what inspired the idea for that show was White traveling around Europe, going from swanky hotel to swanky hotel, and at each of the hotels, White would see Jackson. As Bernad explains, White and Jackson had clearly booked very similar itineraries and in the same hotels. White tweaked his idea, as Bernad explained to Bill Simmons,
This honeymoon couple is going to travel to different hotels, and they are going to see the same people at each hotel.
This version of the show was also turned down, this time by Amazon Prime. Luckily, it wasn’t the end of the story, and eventually, White and Bernad met Jennifer Coolidge. White wrote four episodes of a murder mystery show starring Coolidge in an exotic locale (Sri Lanka), playing a beta-version of Tanya, whom she made famous on the first two seasons of the show. While that show also failed to find a home, the pieces were all in place. Finally, he combined a number of ideas into The White Lotus.
HBO rushed the show into production in July of 2020 in the middle of Covid, as execs were looking for shows that could easily be shot in a pandemic bubble, like a show centered on one tropical resort. The rest is history. Now we need one of the inspirations to make an appearance on the show.
What If Jackson Was One Of The Guests?
Mike White, who is a veteran of Survivor, has cheekily been sneaking some of his former tribemates into the show as background extras, and it would be amazing to see the show cast Jackson in a similar fashion. He doesn’t need to be a main character or even much of a side character. Just the Zen Master himself playing a version of himself somewhere in a minor cameo as part of the cast for Season 4.
Like, maybe he’s checking out as the new guests are arriving, for example, and he’s recognized by one of them. It would just be a fun cameo that doesn’t take away from the plot or distract from the show but pays tribute to White’s original idea for the wildly popular series.
If you haven’t seen Season 3 of The White Lotus, why not? You can catch it all with a Max subscription and see why Phil Jackson would be such a fun cameo for the show.
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