I must know how Helena Bonham Carter fled the French Riviera. Was it by private jet? Emergency dinghy? Did she take one look at the scripts for the new, Cannes-set season of The White Lotus and dive headfirst into the ocean, outcome be damned? The news that the esteemed British star had exited the blockbuster fancy-pants soap opera days into filming is too juicy for words – tales of drama behind the scenes of The White Lotus are typically drip-fed while the show is actually on the air (Fallings-out! Alleged affairs! Prosthetic penises!), not before. We don’t even have a date yet for when the show will be back on screen. This is going to be a long few months, isn’t it?
On Saturday, the show’s backers at HBO confirmed that Bonham Carter’s role is being “rethought… rewritten and recast”, adding: “It had become apparent that the character which Mike White created for Helena Bonham Carter did not align once on set.” They made pains to insist that there was no real drama involved in this drama, with HBO, the show’s producers and White, its one-man writer and director, saying they were “saddened” about Bonham Carter’s exit and “very much hope to work with the legendary actress on another project soon”. Still, this isn’t exactly great.
