Mike White’s ‘Survivor’ Pals Had Cameos in ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 Premiere

Following the season 3 premiere of The White Lotus on Sunday, Feb. 16, fans noticed two familiar faces — but from an entirely different series. 

During a dinner scene at the Thailand resort, cameras caught a glimpse of Survivor’s Natalie Cole and Carl Boudreaux playing hotel guests at dinner. Explaining how creator Mike White chose them for the cameo, Cole told Entertainment Weekly that they first had to settle their beef.

“The fact that he could look beyond the way he felt about me in Fiji and ask me to come do a part speaks volumes about him as a person,” she said in a recent interview with the outlet. “Initially, he thought he was never going to speak to me again!”

White competed with Cole and Boudreaux on Survivor in 2018, but she recalled “feuding” with one of White’s “best friends” Jeremy Crawford, leading to tension with the famed filmmaker. White ultimately voted Cole off the show, but they later made amends.

“I ran into him at Natalia [Azoqa]’s wedding and he did everything but look at me,” she recalled. “When we finally caught each other’s eyes, I waved at him, and oh my god, he ran across the room and threw himself into a hug with me and said, ‘I thought you were mad at me!’ And I said, ‘No, when I first came off [the show] I was, but it’s a game, and I recognize that, and I’m cool.”

In the months following, the Grammy-winner said she kept in contact with White and congratulated him on his Emmy wins for The White Lotus, which is when he brought up a possible role in the show.

“We had conversations, and then he said, ‘If I get a season 3, you think you’d come be on it?'” Cole continued. “I said, ‘Sure,’ but I didn’t think he was serious, right?”

Skeptical, Cole, who was not previously a viewer of The White Lotus, said she figured White would reach back out if he meant it — and he did.

“I would never call, but Mike called, or texted me, actually, and was like, ‘Remember what we talked about — you being in the show if I got a season 3?’” she explained. “And then I said, ‘Well, wait a minute, Mike. It was kind of raunchy in season 2.’ I was concerned about it being so graphic with sex organs and all of that.”

She shared that White called season 3 more “about death” than sex, so she agreed.

“And then he looped Carl [Boudreaux] in and told me Carl was going to play my husband,” she revealed. “I said, ‘Okay, so there’s going to be some humor to this.'”

“I’m the type of person that I’ve always been, so he brought my Survivor character back to life,” she added. “I was very dismissive, ‘Why are you talking to me?’ Carl is a little bit more quiet than me, I’m the aggressive and outspoken one, and that lent itself to [bringing back our] Survivor thing.”

In the episode one scene, Natasha Rothwell’s Belinda notices Cole and Boudreaux, a wealthy couple, being seated at the hotel restaurant. They stood out to Belinda because, as Cole noted, they were “two Black people … and they weren’t staff!”

“I had way more lines than Carl, and I wanted him to speak up because Mike also said we could improvise a bit,” she remembered. “I was trying to help Carl but he’s laid back and he continued to be.”

As for the overall experience, Cole said she enjoyed spending time with her Survivor friends and getting to know the main cast members when cameras went down.

“The location was absolutely beautiful, the food was good,” she said of Thailand, proceeding to answer the question all Survivor fans likely wondered: “We talked about the jacket, but it wasn’t a part of my lines.”

This is not the first time White has brought his fellow Survivor alums onto The White Lotus. Alec Merlino, Angelina Keeley and Kara Kay have also made cameos in past seasons of the hit show.

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New episodes of The White Lotus air Sundays on HBO and Max.