All The British Actors from 'The White Lotus,' Ranked

Even though The White Lotus is created and written by the very American multi-hyphenate Mike White, who also acts, directs, and was in a season of The Amazing Race, its international yet predominantly English-speaking acting ensembles have made me think of it as a British series. The brief seasons, dry wit, and ceaseless ratcheting up of funny-to-awful tension among the characters all remind me very strongly of Britcoms, and the whodunit and whydunit aspects of the now-traditional murders call back to the locked room mysteries of Agatha Christie’s heyday. 

The White Lotus’s third season drew to a surprisingly snoozy close on Sunday, with Jason Isaacs’ North Carolinian patriarch Tim Ratliff choosing life over intra-familial murder-suicide and the maximally cruel, accidental death of Aimee Lou Wood’s Chelsea, making now a perfect time to rank the characters portrayed by British (and in one case, British-ish) actors. 

The ranking isn’t in order of worst-to-best because I do think all of these performances are decent-to-excellent – think of it as working our way up a strong, vibrant field of players to the All-Series MVP. All rankings are in the eye of the beholder, so if the order of your picks varies wildly from mine, let me know how and why!

Reluctantly, I must report that Jason Isaacs is badly miscast here as Tim Ratliff. It’s not for lack of skill or effort, either. Tim Ratliff, a wealthy North Carolinian patriarch, hits the skids (and the Benzos) really hard and gets too much screen time each episode, forcing Isaacs to retread character beats many times, with scarcely any variation. With varying degrees of specificity and bloodiness, Tim often considered the possibility that it would be better for him to kill his family and then himself rather than return to the U.S. to face federal charges on various financial misdeeds. 

In the end, though, this loving father and husband decides that they’ll all go home to face the music. If you long to see Isaacs play a wealthy, frequently self-loathing character forced to reflect on all that he’s done in life, look no further than the first-rate biographical miniseries Archie. He plays the titular role, a man better known to most of us as Cary Grant, imbuing the role of the 20th century’s suavest man with all the panache you expect and the affecting pathos you might not. 

Leo Woodall has been having a moment for at least two years. Between his performances in Season 2 as Jack, Dexter in the emotionally devastating One Day, and potentially world-saving math genius Edward Brooks in Prime Target, alert viewers are almost spoiled for choice when it comes to options for watching him in roles of widely varying cheekiness. Jack is either the nephew or rent boy (or, gruesomely, both) of Tom Hollander’s Quentin, discussed below. 

It’s easy to see how and why Haley Lu Richardson’s Portia is so taken with him – Woodall has the type of eyes that remind us that charm is as much a verb as a noun. Leo is a predator, but butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. 

It pains me not to put Will Sharpe’s performance as Ethan closer to the #1 spot because he’s good in this role, but he’s not as good as some of the other British actors in Season 2. His performance as the uneasy, over-apologetic Ethan also pales in comparison with his supporting turn as the sex worker Rodney in Giri/Haji. Ethan Spiller is in many ways the inverse of Cameron Sullivan (Theo James, see below) – almost painfully earnest, apologetic about having any sexual appetite at all, married to a woman who calls him out directly on his nonsense (Aubrey Plaza). 

He’s also pretty dull until Cameron’s wife, Daphne (Meghann Fahy), invites him to walk with her to a nearby cave. Whether that walk is literal or a euphemism along the same lines as inviting someone over to your place to look at your etchings is up to interpretation. Still, the latter would be far more enjoyable for establishing a new dynamic in Will’s relationship with Cameron.  

All season long, I was hoarding up a quiet belief about Tayme Thapthimthong's Gaitok, the gentle, violence-averse security gate guard at The White Lotus Thailand in Season 3. I thought he’d been a stone-cold killer in the past and that his remarkable first performance at the shooting range reflected actual, long-developing expertise rather than a preternatural gift for marksmanship. I also believe that he struggled with the violence his job expects of him because he’d been there before and didn’t want to go back to it. 

Wow, was I off base! In my defense, Tayme Thapthimthong imbues his performance with such palpable, unselfconscious sweetness that I tricked myself. I’m so disappointed by the predictable (by people other than me) conclusion to Gaitok’s arc, and I hope Thapthimthong lands many future roles that are more worthy of his talent.

In making ultra-wealthy and bored tech-bro Cameron Sullivan almost entirely forgettable in Season 2, Theo James pulls off something that might not seem to be anything special at first glance. Do you know how tough it is to make someone so handsome that boring, though? Sure, there’s a perceptual gulf between how Cameron thinks of himself (irresistibly hot, able to solve any problem that comes at him by throwing money at it) and the kind of person he actually is, (a feckless husband, often cruel frenemy, and about as interesting as a bit of pocket lint). 

On the other hand, he also has Theo James’s face, a huge obstacle to forgetability. And yet! I can barely summon a shrug when I think about his symmetrical face, even though perfect facial symmetry is a staggering, if wholly unearned, feat fueling countless modeling careers and ill-advised one-night stands. Kudos to Theo on this accomplishment! I’d like to see Henry Cavill even try to do the same! No, seriously, I would like to see him give it a whirl. For science.

I consider Tom Hollander's role as Quentin in Season 2 as the second in Hollander’s trio (to date!) of Often But Not Exclusively Sinister Gay Men. Quentin is sandwiched neatly between his performances as Corky Corcoran (consigliere to Hugh Laurie’s international arms dealer Dicky Roper and antagonist to Tom Hiddleston’s do-right MI6 recruit Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager) and the scheming but achingly sincere Truman Capote in Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. 

Quentin, at first, seems to be simply a party-loving wealthy expat who offers Jennifer Coolidge’s character Tanya a welcome respite from her relationship drama with her husband Greg. Unfortunately, he turns out not to be above working as a killer for hire. I won’t give away further details beyond saying that if you’ve heard Coolidge’s iconic delivery of “Do you know these gays? I think these gays are trying to murder me!” Quentin is the ringleader of those particular gays. Hollander makes the most of every moment of screen time and of Quentin’s largely ambiguous intentions. Is he only ever playing a part to Tanya, luring her to his villa exclusively to do her in on behalf of Greg, or does he actually like her, too? Does he feel bad about the little murder plot he’s gotten himself mixed up in, or is he just a simple sociopath? To these questions, I say: Why not both? 

 Okay, yes, Murray Bartlett is not British. He’s Australian, which is as close as anyone in The White Lotus’s Hawa’ii-set first season gets to being British. It’s the most memorable performance of the season, a feat made all the more impressive for beating out Jennifer Coolidge’s Emmy-winning turn as the ditzy/pitiful/awful/ultra-wealthy Tanya. 

Bartlett takes Armond from Point A — tightly wound but holding it together — to Point B — so unraveled that he relieves himself intestinally in a resort guest’s luggage. It’s hilarious, it’s appalling, it’s weirdly believable. I generally don’t believe in having characters appear across multiple seasons of The White Lotus, but I’d make an exception for a flashback season with Armond. 

After watching the first episode of Season 3, if you'd asked me who my favorite character was likely to be by the end of the season, Aimee Lou Wood's Chelsea would have been, at best, somewhere in the middle of the pack. I haven’t yet watched Sex Education (I know! And yes, I’m going to fix that ASAP), so I was seeing Wood with entirely naive and ignorant eyes. In the hands of a less-talented performer, Chelsea could easily have remained a sympathetic and appealing but fundamentally one-note character. Instead, Wood makes the spiritually sensitive yogini and trophy girlfriend an earnest, clear-eyed, three-dimensional person. Her love for her boyfriend Rick (Walton Goggins) is sincere and profound. 

It’s too bad her genuine love didn’t reach a deserving recipient. Getting both Chelsea and himself killed in a firefight fueled by vengeance and its “Oh, I am fortune’s fool!”-style repercussions are disqualifying events, for sure. Wood finds ways to make Chelsea’s sweetness and care for others – everyone from the shop assistant traumatized by a robbery to the very at-sea Saxon Ratliff — real without tipping over into being saccharine. I was rooting for Chelsea in life and will do the same for her spirit in the Great TV Beyond. RIP Chelsea, let’s go, Aimee Lou!