‘The White Lotus’: Haley Lu Richardson Thinks Portia Is a Taylor Swift–Worthy Antihero

Haley Lu Richardson was not a Love Island fan before filming season two of The White Lotus, but now she can’t get enough of it. “I literally have [Love Island] paused on my TV right now. I’m not even joking,” says Richardson while Zooming into Still Watching.

“I think maybe Leo did it to me,” she says of her new passion for the addictive UK reality series. Richardson is, of course, referring to her character’s hunky new love interest, Jack (Leo Woodall), who looks like he walked right out of Casa Amor and onto the set of The White Lotus. “Maybe getting to know Leo subconsciously made me want to watch a bunch of hot guys with British accents.”

Given how Portia and Jack’s relationship heats up in episode four, the path to Love Island makes perfect sense. After trading glances late-night by the pool, Portia has set all her romantic sights on Jack, much to the detriment of her budding romance with Albie (Adam DiMarco). But from Richardson’s perspective, Portia and Albie were never a good fit for each other. “I do think that in another world, Albie could be so great for Portia in so many ways, but she would also just ruin him,” Richardson says. “There would be so much resentment there.” But the love triangle between Portia, Albie, and Jack grows even more complicated when Lucia (Simona Tabasco)—yes, that Lucia—meets Albie poolside and sparks begin to fly.

Elsewhere on The White Lotus this week, Harper (Aubrey Plaza) dissociates because of a condom wrapper, Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) meets Quentin (Tom Hollander) and his chic group of gay friends, and Mia (Beatrice Grannò) may be responsible for our first casualty of the season. Still Watching hosts Richard Lawson and Chris Murphy break down the episode, unpack new listener theories—are Cameron (Theo James) and Daphne (Meghann Fahy) con artists?—and as always offer up their own theories for who winds up dead at the end of the season. Listen below, and find a partial transcript of the Richardson interview as well. For your own questions, comments, and theories, please email stillwatchingpod@gmail.com.

Vanity Fair: Have you seen the memes about Portia crying because she's on an all-expense paid trip to Sicily?

Haley Lu Richardson: Yeah, I did look up Portia. I twittered—or tweeted?—my name, which I literally don't think I will ever do again [laughs]. 

How was that?

People after episode three seem to be pretty annoyed with Portia and me as an actor [laughs].