It solely took 20 seconds for Mike White, the creator of “The White Lotus,” to solid the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui as the star character in the third installment of his hit HBO collection.
“Arriving to the resort, you’re standing on top of a peak and you can see 43 acres of lush land [and] the Gulf of Thailand, and it’s just beautiful overall,” Jasjit Assi, the resort’s general manager, informed TPG on a current go to to New York City. “And when Mike walked in, he was just silent for 20 seconds, and he said, ‘This is it.'”
In all three seasons of “The White Lotus,” the fictional general manager performs a key position: catering to haughty friends, managing employees members who see and listen to every little thing and, at instances, moving into sticky conditions of their very own.
For Assi, who has labored with Four Seasons, the luxurious hospitality model “The White Lotus” is unofficially primarily based on, for 18 years, it is easy to separate the TV general managers — like Armond on Maui and Valentina in Sicily — from his real-life position as the main chief at the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui.
“Look,” mentioned Assi, who’s nothing like the awkward, goofy general manager of The White Lotus Koh Samui in the present. “‘White Lotus’ is meant to entertain. There is a bit of exaggeration. It’s a satire; it’s a fictional drama series.”
But what’s actual, he insists, is the magnificence of the resort and the distinctive Thai hospitality you see all through the season.
“You are seeing the resort play a character,” he mentioned. “To maintain the beauty of this resort, that’s my role in this.”
After White “booked” the resort for the present, he reserved a keep for himself and “experienced everything as a guest,” Assi defined. He added that the two of them, alongside with White’s crew, “opened up every door that could be opened” as Assi helped the staff plan the good areas for various varieties of scenes.
Then, in February and March 2024, the resort closed to the public to remodel into “The White Lotus.” It stayed absolutely open, although, for the present’s solid.
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“In reality, it was like running a proper resort every day,” Assi mentioned, although shoots had been occurring Monday via Friday.
On filming days, the Four Seasons employees adjusted to satisfy the wants of the solid and crew’s wild filming schedule.
“Whatever [the crew’s] needs were, wherever they were moving around the resort, the staff was helping them out to move and set up locations,” he mentioned.
On the weekends, the stars of the present “embraced the real Thailand island life.” And, after 5 days of capturing, he defined, they wanted to chill out.
“We treated them like normal guests. They would go down to the beach. They were ordering cocktails. They were going into the spa,” Assi mentioned, noting that additionally they hung out elsewhere on the island, like native eating places, “embracing real life.”
Really, he mentioned, they “felt like part of the family.” So a lot so, the truth is, that actor Parker Posey, whose journey to movie the present marked her first go to to Asia, “came back to the resort to say thank you to the people who looked after her” whereas returning to the island for a wellness retreat.
The Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui employees might need tried to make the expertise at the resort as regular as potential for the solid and crew, however for them, enjoying host to 1 of the world’s hottest TV reveals required some adjustments.
“We had to educate them, to be honest,” Assi mentioned about his employees, many of whom did not perceive simply how large the present is — or that the present’s satirical have a look at its employees did not essentially symbolize them, the real-life individuals who make the resort so great.
Assi’s employees needed to be nimble, adjusting meals tailor-made to the solid’s on-set diets or serving to them plan days off. They additionally needed to vow to secrecy.
“We had to sign a lot of NDAs and confidentiality agreements,” he mentioned, explaining that his employees discovered methods to be coy when friends requested in the event that they had been going to movie “The White Lotus” there.
Now that individuals know Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui as the property from the present, the questions have modified. People need to know what villa the Ratliff household stayed in (a three-bedroom villa that begins at $8,000 per evening) or the place actor Patrick Schwarzenegger got here out of the pool shirtless.
“Guests want to [have] their own ‘White Lotus’ experiences,” Assi careworn, noting that his staff absolutely anticipated the drive in bookings the present would trigger — identical to the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea in Hawaii and San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel in Sicily, Italy, skilled after their seasons as visitor stars.
And that is why Four Seasons has been — and doubtless will proceed to be — such an ideal accomplice for the present.
“The Four Seasons philosophy has always been ‘inspiration through travel,'” Assi mentioned, “and I think cinema in this age has [taken] it to the next level. [Four Seasons] is based on the pillars of a great location, a great resort and great service … [and with the show,] you can see it.”
Now, with Season Three coming to an finish, simply do not ask Assi his ideas on the place Season Four ought to happen. With amusing he mentioned, “Let me survive this one.”
How to guide: Rates at Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui begin at $1,800 per evening for a pool villa.
Book via a program like American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts or The Edit by Chase Travel to attain elitelike perks, corresponding to room upgrades (when obtainable), free breakfast, late checkout and property credit.
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