The White Lotus has checked in a new guest following the unexpected departure of Helena Bonham Carter, with Laura Dern confirmed to be replacing the actress in an entirely new role for the upcoming fourth season.
Dern will play a guest of the The White Lotus hotel in a role that is being developed and written especially for her by series creator Mike White, HBO confirmed overnight.
The Big Little Lies actress is a longtime collaborator of White’s, having appeared in his 2012 series Enlightened. She’s also no stranger to the LCU (Lotus Extended Universe), since she has an uncredited voice role in the second season of the show as the wife of Michael Imperioli‘s character.
More explicit details of Dern’s role have not yet been revealed, but her announcement in the cast comes after a flurry of speculation around Carter, who was initially billed as the fourth season’s lead star before her shock exit late last week.
Carter, known for Harry Potter and The Crown, left the ensemble of the France-set season just nine days into filming, sparking a bunch of insider claims and rumours of her replacement before Dern filled her shoes.
At the time, an HBO spokesperson put the exit down to creative differences between Carter and White, saying the pair’s vision for her character “did not align once on set”.
“With filming just underway on season four of The White Lotus, it had become apparent that the character which Mike White created for Helena Bonham Carter did not align once on set,” the spokesperson said.
“The role has subsequently been rethought, is being rewritten and will be recast in the coming weeks,” they added.
While the statement certainly has the faint whiff of something more dramatic going down behind the scenes, sources have come forward over the past few days claiming Carter’s departure was due to a “clash” with her co-star Sandra Bernhard.
“The word is Helena left because of a clash with Sandra Bernhard,” an anonymous source told The Daily Mail.
Nipping the chatter in the bud, a representative for Carter reportedly denied the claim to The Daily Mail and insisted she hadn’t even met Bernhard in the early stages of filming the show.
But the speculation persisted, including in the form of DeuxMoi-led rumours that Jennifer Tilly, star of Chucky, Liar Liar, and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, was supposedly replacing Carter.
“Jennifer Tilly is in negotiations to replace Helena Bonham Carterin The White Lotus season four,” the insider claimed. “[An] announcement should be made the week of May 4 if all goes well,” the gossip page claimed earlier this week.
That tea about was ultimately disproven following Dern’s introduction to the cast, but we will have to wait and see how the whole thing shakes out as filming for The White Lotus season four continues. Watch this space.
Lead images: Getty
The post Laura Dern Officially Checking Into The White Lotus After Helena Bonham Carter’s Dramatic Exit appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
