Will Sharpe (‘The White Lotus’) on the ‘weird enigma’ of Ethan: ‘I like that he’s morally ambiguous’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Will Sharpe dominated our TV screens this season in Season 2 of HBO’s “The White Lotus” as Ethan Spiller, the husband of Harper (Aubrey Plaza), who travels to Italy for a weeklong vacation. During our recent exclusive video interview (watch above), Sharpe explains how the first thing that drew him to the character was “how different his behavior is at the end of the series compared to how you meet him at the beginning.” Ethan is “sort of a weird enigma of a man,” laughs the English actor.
Sharpe is a 2020 BAFTA TV Award winner for “Giri/Haji” and a 2023 SAG Award champion for “The White Lotus” as part of the ensemble cast. Next up on the awards front are the Emmy nominations, where he’s eligible in the Best Drama Supporting Actor category. If he were to receive a bid, he would be “very confused and surprised, but also grateful,” he tells me.
More from GoldDerby
SEE Haley Lu Richardson (‘The White Lotus’) on creator Mike White: ‘I wrote him a love letter, trying to get his attention’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
Speaking about Ethan, Sharpe admits he rather enjoyed “trying to get to the bottom of who he is exactly and why he’s behaving in the way that he is, [including] stuff he’s doing that I disapprove of or would question.” He concedes, “I like that he’s morally ambiguous … at first, maybe there’s like the sense that, oh, he’s just like a normal, nice guy. And then in an insidious way, I think his behavior becomes just as problematic as anyone else’s really, just in a different way.”
The writer/director/producer of “The White Lotus” is Mike White, whom Sharpe calls “also a bit of an enigma at times.” As he reveals, “He likes to present as very laidback, and he does give you the illusion of freedom, but at the same time he’s very precise about details and he knows exactly what he wants.” Sharpe remarks how the showrunner “doesn’t like to rehearse very much … he wanted us to play it as straight as possible and to be as honest as possible.”
Sharpe shared most of his scenes with Plaza, and they even came up with a backstory for how their characters met. “I think we decided they probably maybe met at someone else’s wedding,” he recalls. “And Mike’s thing with that relationship was he didn’t want it ever to feel like it was any single thing that could be held responsible for the strain in the relationship. He wanted it to be simply that they had been together for a long time and that a kind of atrophy had come with that.” So Sharpe and Plaza “agreed it probably needed to be at least seven years that they’d been together.”
There were two major Ethan-centric scenes in the finale that caused a stir among fans: a fight sequence in the ocean with Cameron (Theo James) and a possible hookup with Daphne (Meghann Fahy). Sharpe says he had “a half hour of practice the day before” for the fight scene, which he ultimately describes as “cathartic” for the character. And his take on the did-they-or-didn’t-they moment? “I think like with the vibe of the location, it has a sort of Mediterranean mystery about it … something happened of note on that island, but it’s deliberately ambiguous in the script.”
Also in our exclusive video interview, Sharpe talks about what he thought of Season 1 before he signed on for Season 2, the moment his character made an “emotionally unintelligent choice,” and what it was like winning the SAG Award for Best Drama Ensemble with the rest of his “White Lotus” cast mates.
PREDICT the 2023 Emmy nominees through July 12
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions
Best of GoldDerby
Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
