Jennifer Coolidge is making waves with her new role as Tanya McQuoid in HBO’s recently-launched miniseries, The White Lotus. And, during an interview earlier this week with The Ringer, she opened up about her character and spoke of how the loneliness she felt amid the coronavirus pandemic was mirrored on the show.
"You know, I’ve been living it since the beginning of March. I was living in my house in New Orleans and it was extremely lonely and it really did feel like the end," Coolidge, who plays a wealthy woman who traveled to Hawaii to scatter her mother’s ashes, admitted.
Jennifer Coolidge Came Out Of Quarantine To Film ‘The White Lotus’
"So it was sort of a good send-off to experience that right up until the beginning of filming The White Lotus," she explained.
According to Coolidge, she went to a dark place mentally in the months leading up to the start of production.
"I was incredibly skeptical about this whole pandemic thing; I didn’t think we were going to survive it. I was sort of a fatalist. I had a fatalistic approach to it all and I just was watching way too much of the news," she shared.
Jennifer Coolidge Felt She Was ‘Improvising’ At Times
After becoming quite vulnerable as she attempted to make it through the pandemic, Coolidge carried her emotions into filming as some of the restrictions put into place in early 2020 were lifted.
"I think it carried on into the making of White Lotus, just because it still wasn’t over. I mean, we were filming when there were still, terrible things were happening outside our gates, you know," she noted.
Because the pandemic wasn’t over, Coolidge said she often felt that she was "improvising" while filming The White Lotus.
Jennifer Coolidge Was ‘Very Depressed’ Amid The Pandemic
"I was very depressed through COVID. Up until we got to The White Lotus and even during The White Lotus," Coolidge confessed.
That said, amid the devastation she was feeling both on set and off, Coolidge said she felt excited about the project that Mike White was creating with the HBO show.
"I had some depressing moments, just dealing with sad stuff, and I felt like something incredibly optimistic happening at the same time," she said. "I just remember it being really profound."
Jennifer Coolidge Is Blown Away By Mike White
While filming came with some challenges, some due to the pandemic and some due to the heat, Coolidge said she trusted White throughout.
"Mike is, of course, a true genius. He really is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. And so, whatever Mike is creating, it’s far more advanced than what I’m … like, when he’s shooting off his mouth at something, I’m listening to his thoughts and just going, ‘Oh my God,’" she explained. "Mike will tell me a dream he had, and it’s the most advanced, complicated dream I’ve ever heard in my life."
