It solely took 20 seconds for Mike White, the creator of “The White Lotus,” to solid the 4 Seasons Resort Koh Samui as the star character within the third installment of his hit HBO collection.
“Arriving to the resort, you are standing on high of a peak and you’ll see 43 acres of lush land [and] the Gulf of Thailand, and it is simply stunning total,” Jasjit Assi, the resort’s normal supervisor, instructed TPG on a current go to to New York City. “And when Mike walked in, he was simply silent for 20 seconds, and he stated, ‘That is it.'”
In all three seasons of “The White Lotus,” the fictional normal supervisor performs a key function: catering to haughty friends, managing workers members who see and listen to all the pieces and, at instances, entering 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 normal managers — like Armond on Maui and Valentina in Sicily — from his real-life function as the first chief on the 4 Seasons Resort Koh Samui.
“Look,” stated Assi, who’s nothing just like the awkward, goofy normal supervisor of The White Lotus Koh Samui within the present. “‘White Lotus’ is supposed to entertain. There’s a little bit of exaggeration. It is a satire; it is a fictional drama collection.”
However what’s actual, he insists, is the great thing about the resort and the distinctive Thai hospitality you see all through the season.
“You’re seeing the resort play a personality,” he stated. “To keep up the great thing about this resort, that is my function on this.”
After White “booked” the resort for the present, he reserved a keep for himself and “skilled all the pieces as a visitor,” Assi defined. He added that the 2 of them, together with White’s crew, “opened up each door that may very well be opened” as Assi helped the staff plan the proper areas for various kinds of scenes.
Then, in February and March 2024, the resort closed to the general public to remodel into “The White Lotus.” It stayed totally open, although, for the present’s solid.
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“In actuality, it was like operating a correct resort on daily basis,” Assi stated, though shoots had been occurring Monday by way of Friday.
On filming days, the 4 Seasons workers adjusted to satisfy the wants of the solid and crew’s wild filming schedule.
“No matter [the crew’s] wants had been, wherever they had been shifting across the resort, the workers was serving to them out to maneuver and arrange areas,” he stated.
On the weekends, the celebrities of the present “embraced the true Thailand island life.” And, after 5 days of taking pictures, he defined, they wanted to chill out.
“We handled them like regular friends. They might go right down to the seaside. They had been ordering cocktails. They had been going into the spa,” Assi stated, noting that in addition they hung out elsewhere on the island, like native eating places, “embracing actual life.”
Actually, he stated, they “felt like a part of the household.” A lot so, in truth, that actor Parker Posey, whose journey to movie the present marked her first go to to Asia, “got here again to the resort to say thanks to the individuals who taken care of her” whereas returning to the island for a wellness retreat.
The 4 Seasons Resort Koh Samui workers may need tried to make the expertise on the resort as regular as attainable for the solid and crew, however for them, enjoying host to one of many world’s hottest TV reveals required some modifications.
“We needed to educate them, to be sincere,” Assi stated about his workers, lots of whom did not perceive simply how large the present is — or that the present’s satirical take a look at its workers did not essentially signify them, the real-life individuals who make the resort so fantastic.
Assi’s workers needed to be nimble, adjusting meals tailor-made to the solid’s on-set diets or serving to them plan days off. Additionally they needed to vow to secrecy.
“We needed to signal lots of NDAs and confidentiality agreements,” he stated, explaining that his workers realized how one can 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 show, the questions have modified. Folks need to know what villa the Ratliff household stayed in (a three-bedroom villa that begins at $8,000 per night time) or the place actor Patrick Schwarzenegger got here out of the pool shirtless.
“Friends need to [have] their very own ‘White Lotus’ experiences,” Assi confused, noting that his staff totally anticipated the drive in bookings the present would trigger — identical to the 4 Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea in Hawaii and San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A 4 Seasons Resort in Sicily, Italy, skilled after their seasons as visitor stars.
And that is why 4 Seasons has been — and doubtless will proceed to be — such an incredible companion for the present.
“The 4 Seasons philosophy has all the time been ‘inspiration by way of journey,'” Assi stated, “and I feel cinema on this age has [taken] it to the subsequent stage. [Four Seasons] is predicated on the pillars of an incredible location, an incredible resort and nice service … [and with the show,] you possibly can see it.”
Now, with Season Three coming to an finish, simply do not ask Assi his ideas on the place Season 4 ought to happen. With amusing he stated, “Let me survive this one.”
The way to ebook: Charges at Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui begin at $1,800 per night time for a pool villa.
E-book by way of a program like American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts or The Edit by Chase Travel to attain elitelike perks, corresponding to room upgrades (when out there), free breakfast, late checkout and property credit.
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