2022 was truly the year when the wealthy were held accountable, at least in movies and television. Between Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, White Noise, and Triangle of Sadness, we got a ton of great content that forced the upper class to have traumatic vacations. The pinnacle of this was the second season of The White Lotus, which moved the miniseries to a luxurious new location in Italy. Unfortunately for the characters, this had more in common with the Italian scenery of The Talented Mr. Ripley than it did with Under The Tuscan Sun. As with the first season, the end of this trip is teased at the very beginning, and it’s a violent one.

Both seasons of The White Lotus take place at individual locations in a luxury vacation resort chain. A multitude of guests (most of whom are incredibly wealthy) interact with the staff and local residents, only to begin squabbling and bringing up past issues. While the show’s brilliance stems from the inventive storytelling of writer/director Mike White, it doesn’t hurt that the show has the budget and scale of an HBO production. In order to make the series as authentic as possible, White and his production team utilized several real locations in both seasons.

The White Lotus has drawn critical acclaim due to how close its satire feels to reality, and the believability extends to the filming locations themselves. Real Four Seasons locations were used in both seasons to stand in for the titular White Lotus chain. However, creative design work on the part of White’s crew helped transform these real destination locations into the haunting environments of the series. It’s certainly the type of series that may make you second-guess any of your intended vacation plans.

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Season 1's Filming Locations

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Image via HBO

The first season of The White Lotus takes place in the Hawaiian resort, which is decorated and designed to reflect the local cultural practices (or at least the way that they are perceived by tourists); there’s a particularly entertaining storyline where the hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) and the brutish guest Shane Patton (Jake Lacy) get into a dispute over the “Pineapple Room.” In reality, the Four Seasons Maui features one-bedroom suites that overlook Wailea Beach and cost over $9,000 a night.

White had grown interested in telling a story set in Hawaii after filming episodes of his show Enlightened. He said that “the colonial legacy is still a living issue,” and that he learned more about the United States’ annexation of Hawaii in 1898 and the lack of self-determination granted to Indigenous groups as a result of his experience. This is a core theme in the first season of The White Lotus; White found that “Hawaii is a very paradisiacal and idyllic place,” but its economy is dominated by tourists and military contractors who are largely unaware of the issues of American imperialism.

Ironically, Season 1 was filmed amidst the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic when the tourism industry had been facing many setbacks. This gave production designer Laura Fox the opportunity to spend time redesigning the artwork, sets, and scenery in each room featured in the series; The White Lotus fans have enjoyed analyzing the background details for hidden Easter eggs, and Fox herself compared the subtle menace of the hotel to The Shining.

Season 2's Filming Locations

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Image via HBO

Between assassination attempts, mafia, familial conflict, and beautiful Italian scenery, The White Lotus: Sicily had a lot in common with The Godfather. Similar to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 crime classic, season 2 was filmed on location in Italy. The San Domenico Palace, Taormina stands in for the clifftop resort in the series. Additionally, White makes use of several local wonders, including the Ionian Sea, the Greek Theater of Teatro Antico di Taormina, and the active Mount Etna volcano, which erupts in the final episode, “Arrivederci.”

Considering that The White Lotus: Sicily focuses on the issues of colonialism, it makes sense that the series was filmed in a location with a complex history. The Four Seasons resort in Season 2 was once a 14th-century Dominican convent but was transformed into a hotel in 1896. In its storied history, the resort has welcomed such well-known figures as Oscar Wilde, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Sophia Loren. The hotel had an expensive restoration when it was acquired by the Four Seasons chain.

Additional filming took place in Rome’s Lumina Studios, but the sequence where the Di Grasso family visits the Castello degli Schiavi coastal town of Fiumefreddo was filmed on location in Sicily. As Bert (F. Murray Abraham) notes, this is famously where The Godfather was shot. Other Sicilian locations used in season 2 included the Palazzo Ducezio, the town of Noto, the capital city of Palerm, and the coastal town Cefalù.

Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) makes a reference to how she dreams of spending a day looking like Monica Vitti, the famous classic movie star of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 masterpiece L’Avventura; ironically, L’Avventura filmed a portion of its ending sequence in Noro. The baroque architecture of Noto was also used in the filming of the recent musical remake of Cyrano starring Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennet. By filming on location, White was able to minimize production costs due to the tax credits provided to foreign productions.

Where Will Season 3 Be Filming?

Jennifer Coolidge as Tanya in The White Lotus Season 2 Episode 7
Image Via HBO

While The White Lotus was originally intended to be a standalone miniseries, the overwhelmingly positive reception and acclaim inspired White to utilize the anthology format to create another installment. Amidst the buzz around Season 2, HBO confirmed that the series had been renewed for another season. There haven’t been any details about returning cast members, but based on the Season 2 finale, we can guess that Tanya won’t be among them.

While filming has not yet begun, White has teased that he’s interested in exploring "death and Eastern religion and spirituality." Considering that the show has already ventured to an American state and a European resort, creating a new installment set in Asia would certainly allow the series to go in a different direction.

The first two seasons of The White Lotus are now available to stream on HBO Max.