Charlotte Le Bon plays the French-Canadian Chloe on the third season of The White Lotus.Crave/Supplied
Charlotte Le Bon felt relieved when The White Lotus aired earlier this year.
The Canadian actress and her co-stars Sam Nivola and Patrick Schwarzenegger would no longer be carrying around the secret of a scene they had shot that would ultimately become the most talked-about on television this year.
In the third season of Mike White’s HBO anthology series set at a chain of luxury resorts, seen on Crave in Canada, Le Bon played Chloe, the Québécoise consort to the ur-villain Greg/Gary (Jon Gries). She instigates a threesome involving two rich brothers, played by Nivola and Schwarzenegger.
This fictional encounter brought new international attention to Le Bon, an accomplished filmmaker (Falcon Lake), artist and former model who is also the voice of the Inside Out franchise’s Joy in both its Quebec and French versions.
On a recent stop in Toronto for the Bell Media upfronts, Le Bon spoke to The Globe and Mail about the positive reaction to her storyline and on being French Canadian — not French! — in an interview at a downtown five-star hotel seemingly free of intrigue or incest.
Everyone is wondering if you’re here because it’s a hint that you’ll be in the next White Lotus season.
I wish it was, but I have absolutely no idea. I think Mike White doesn’t even know himself. He’s going to start to writing really soon because recently I heard he was scouting for the next season. But I don’t even know if they know where it’s going to be yet. He changes his mind all the time.
I’m spreading the rumour that the next season will be in Quebec City.
That was the rumour for the third season as well.
I’m continuing to spread it because I feel they’re going to take your character and you’ll be the star of the fourth season.
It’s not going to happen. Thank you for believing in me like this, but unfortunately, I think Quebec City is not exotic enough.
What was it like to be part of this phenomenon – and the most talked-about scene on television of the year, the incestuous threesome?
There was a kind of relief when it got out because me, Patrick and Sam were all holding the secret – and also a little bit scared of how people would react. But it was welcomed in a way where it was, obviously, the cringiest, but people got the humour. I like how my character is this person who saw this toxic masculinity in Patrick’s character – and she was like, “I’m going to destroy this and see what it does.” She just wants to see him crumble. Crumble?
Crumble’s a good word.
It was very satisfying to see how people were reacting to it. It’s the kind of cultural phenomenon that doesn’t happen really often – and I’m not sure I’ll be in multiple ones like that.
Le Bon and Walton Goggins in season 3 of The White Lotus.Crave/Supplied
Was Chloe always going to from Quebec, explicitly?
I arrived after a month and a half of shooting and, in the beginning, my character was not French-Canadian. I had a discussion with Mike, and he was like, “Well, I think I’m going to make her French. What do you think?” And I was like, “Well, you know, in all of the other American movies that I’ve been in, I was always playing the French girlfriend and I’m not French, so just let’s make her French-Canadian.” Mike White is open enough to be able to receive that; he likes everything that can make the show or the characters more unique.
Then her identity was foregrounded in that scene that increased Greg/Gary’s villainy among Canadian viewers, where he casually misidentifies Chloe as French and she snaps back: “I’m from Quebec – it’s not the same thing.”
Mike wrote that scene himself. He understood the dynamics, the difference of culture between the French and the French Canadians.
You dub both the voice of Joy in the French-from-France version of Pixar’s Inside Out (Vice-versa) and the Quebec version (Sens dessus dessous). So you know how to code shift.
When you dub a cartoon like that, your accent needs to be more neutral. So I did a neutral accent and on certain words, I had to change. Words like “hockey,” for instance, will be said in a different way in French and in Québécois. Or “cookies” – it’s a different word.
So you didn’t have to do the job all the way through twice.
No, no, I just did it once and then I changed certain words.
Did you get paid double or 1.5 or …?
No. Disney just pays me for one thing and then that’s it.
You’re a star. They should be paying you more.
Yeah, you should call them and say that.
The reason you came in a month and a half late into The White Lotus was because they recast your part, right?
Yes, there was a recast and they changed the whole character when they did that. The arc was the same.
Was it hard to bond with people at that point in the process?
It was definitely intimidating, but I was lucky enough to meet people who were really generous and chaleureux. The first person that I had breakfast with who became my breakfast buddy was John Gries. Then there was kind of like a breakfast club with Carrie Coon, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Jason Isaacs.
What do you think is the future of your character, Chloe, and Gary or whatever his real name is? Do you think you’ll stick around?
Gary’s definitely sticking around. I’m sure he’s coming back. Unless he jumps the season and then he comes back after. I mean, we never know. We never know what Mike White’s up to.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
