Aimee Lou Wood
Appearances
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
I do know what happens. I do know what happens. However, I remember on the call sheet for that day, Mike did put fake things on the shooting schedule. So that if anyone in the hotel, for example, found some of our info. Oh, great. Paper trail. Paper trail, yeah. Then they would think that it was a different ending. So he actually put on the schedule that it was, it said, Belinda dies.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
And so anyone who leaked it would have been leaking the wrong thing. Oh, wow. Which I thought was very smart.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
Well, then I started going, what if this is a double, what if this is a kind of Russian doll vibe and he's actually given us the false ending and that's the real ending. So I started being like, that would be so Mike that actually this is the real ending and that we've been under false pretenses like the whole time.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
It would. Exactly. Exactly.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
So when I did my callback for when I met Mike for the first time, we did this scene. I did the scene where Chelsea says to Rick, I think we're going to be together forever, don't you? And he says, that's the plan or whatever he says. And Chelsea's like, is it? We did that. And I kind of sensed, like when I read that scene, I thought... It's them. It's them. It's them.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
And then Mike said to me at the end of that callback, he essentially said, I feel like you were picking up on the fact that maybe these two have the tragic ending. And he told me in the callback. And that's when I thought, oh, my God, if I haven't got that part.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
I have. And I thought, I didn't want to be cocky, but I was like, I feel like he wouldn't have told me that if I didn't get the part. But... So I knew, but I didn't know, obviously, how it got there in the story until the scripts got sent. And I was really surprised that, you know, they sent all the scripts. We got all eight episodes and we could read them all from the beginning of shooting.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
I thought they would do a kind of, you know, two at a time vibe or something. But no, we got all eight in our inbox. And the pressure of that, the responsibility of that, when I got that email and it was all eight episodes, I was all of a sudden,
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
so scared of hacking I was like someone's gonna find them and it's gonna be me and it's gonna be this is from Amy Amy Wood's account and we've got all the information and because it's so it's so you know important to people and people don't want the story to be spoiled and they don't want you know they want that they think they do like on the street people will think they'll be like just tell me just tell me just tell me like I've been getting it so much this week where they're
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
just tell me, is it you? Is it you? And I'm like, please, guys, seriously, you don't want to know because for this instant gratification right now, you're going to ruin, you've been invested for eight weeks. You're going to ruin it for yourselves. Just don't push me.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
But now I'm so ready for everyone to know and I'm so ready for it to just be, because that is, I said, you know, I got told that secret at 29 years old. I'm now 31. Oh my God.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
I have been holding this secret.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
Yeah, exactly. I have felt like a full-blown spy. You're living a double life. I know. It feels like that. And also, it's so... Secrets corrupt.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
You're only as sick as your secrets. You know, it's like a... It's a relief that it's coming out. And I also think that... It's an odd thing to know that you're the sacrificial lamb, especially when there's people coming over being like, you know, as long as it's you that doesn't die, as long as it's not Chelsea, I don't mind who it is, as long as it's not Chelsea. And I'm like, mm-hmm.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
It means you have to embrace your fate, good or bad. Whatever will be, will be. And at this point, we're linked, so if a bad thing happens to you, it happens to me. I think we're going to be together forever, don't you?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
People coming over and just saying that and I'm trying not to move my mouth or move my face in any way. And they're like, it's just, it's been a lot of pressure. Yeah. Yeah.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
I know. And the thing is that Mike is, because as I've said a lot, you know, he, I think people think he's probably quite cynical as a person because his writing is so searing and so scathing and so acerbic. But he is an optimist. He is so playful. He is so mischievous. He's so like Chelsea. And I would watch him on set, you know, running about and his laugh just throbbing.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
floating through the wind that like majestic laugh and you just feel so great when you hear Mike laughing and it's he's he's joy he's very joyful and I saw a lot of Chelsea obviously he's in all the characters it's the White Lotus but it's like you know it I saw so much Chelsea and then I thought And of course, of course, you're going to kill hope, Mike.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
It's like you're going to give the show this warm kind of, you know, optimistic person for kind of the first time in a way, like someone that purely optimistic and that purely optimistic. you know, romantic. And you can, of course, of course, of course you have to kill her. Of course Mike White has to kill her. Of course he has to kill Hope.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
Because it's like, he can allow it to be in the show, but then he also has to be like, but it's still the White Lotus. It's still the White Lotus. And I think it is tragic, but I think... In a really kind of macabre way, she does get what she wants.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
Well, I think that Chelsea... You know, I had such Chelsea goggles on the whole time, so I was just in her... in that frame of mind of this is my soulmate, this is cosmic, this is, I had to believe what Chelsea was saying and not really analyze it too much and just be there. And then as time's gone on and I've separated from her,
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
I've been able to see it in a more kind of complex way and a more objective way. And I'm going, you know, she is incredible at deflecting. So she's saying one finger pointing, three pointing back the whole time. She's like, Rick, you're so mysterious. You're so secretive. You're so this, you're so that. She is. She is so mysterious. And I think that she...
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
she said, you know, it's that kind of, he's the avoidant one, right? She's avoidant in her own way because she knows that pouring all of her energy into this tunnel vision mission of saving Rick means that she doesn't have to look at herself. She doesn't have to be seen. So, you know, she wants to be the seer. She doesn't want to be the seen. And I think that's what
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
you know, that is avoidant in her own way, but it's more, and actually Rick and Chelsea are very similar in the sense that they both think that they're choiceless. So like Rick is like, I don't have a choice here. I have to do this. I have to seek revenge because that man decided my life for me. He decided my fate for me. And I, and now it's written, it's determined that
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
since I was a baby this has been determined this was what was going to happen and Chelsea's like but you don't have to buy into that you can just be here with me but at the same time she's going this is determined it's written I have no choice Rick is my soulmate I have to be with him there's nothing I can do about it so both of them have like a very stubborn kind of commitment to this idea of fate and determinism and the fact that it's all written and that they don't really have choice they don't have free will and I think that's kind of
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
Saxon and Chelsea is so interesting because I feel like on the bed when, you know, I think it's such a great image that she throws the books about spirituality at him to block him. You know, that's her block. It's very clever because she's speaking about something that seems very vulnerable and and intimate, but it's actually what she uses to not be seen.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
You know, she's all these external things like horoscopes and enneagrams and zodiac and books about things, but don't actually look at me for too... Don't see into... You know, it's intimacy. Intimacy, as my teacher used to say. And she doesn't... She wants to be the one looking out at Rick, tunnel vision. She doesn't really want much of that attention back.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
And I think she thinks she does, but... but I don't know if she would truly know how to hold that. I think that there's something, she's running away from something in the same way that Rick is, and that's where they're very similar.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
Well, look at the way that he takes everything she says on pretty much immediately. Like he's like, I can be better. I can change. I can do that. And she's like, well, you should then. And he's like, okay, show me. Like it's the, it is the antithesis. It's like, he's there going, show me, tell me, teach me your ways. Let me have it. Let me have it. And she's kind of like,
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
doesn't want to give it, like, she's kind of like, okay, no. And then, you know, so I think it is, I think it's highly, you know, these attachment styles that everyone talks about, anxious attached, anxious avoidant, all this stuff. Anxious attached is also avoidant because a lot of anxious attached people go for avoidant people so that they don't have to have true intimacy. They have a mission.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
They have a, you know, Chelsea's got a rescue complex, right? She wants to rescue, and if he's okay, then she can't do that. So, you know, she is lovely, and it is annoying and sad when Rick's mean to her, but she is choosing. She does have choice, and she is choosing him, and she is choosing that. And I think that that's where...
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
she doesn't understand that she's choosing, you know, in the way that she says to Rick, no, you are choosing to pursue this revenge. You are choosing to mess up your life. You are self-sabotaging. This is a choice. This is not destiny. Stop. She can't apply the same rules to herself. She's like, but you're my... They're the same.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
They're both blocked in their own ways and they've both got tunnel vision in their own ways. And this is the kind of... You know, it's where they are kindred spirits because they are both, they both have this grim determination and this death drive. I think it's this scorpionic death drive that they have. You know, Chelsea says it from the beginning.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
She says, I will bring your joy back even if it kills me. She says it the whole, it's like, bad things come in threes. She's obsessed with, she's always, like her proximity to death is, it's there all the time. She's constantly talking about it. She's constantly, and I think that when you see her on the boat with Chloe and she says, why is it all about him? Why is it all about his feelings?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
Bad things have happened to me too. And you don't see me walking around feeling sorry for myself. I think that's one of the most truthful moments you ever get of Chelsea is because she's present. She's with Chloe. She's not thinking about Rick. She's not, she's all of a sudden actually reveals something very true about herself. And it's a very rare moment for her.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
And I think that that's what she's scared of. When she stops focusing on him, these feelings come up and whatever her past is comes up. And so she's created this incredible distraction from her own stuff, which is Rick. I think she is tricking herself into thinking she can save him. But actually she's like, if he's going down, I'm going down with him. Peace out, everyone. We're out of here.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
We're birds of a feather. We're, you know, and I think that she's romanticized that. And I think that it is the whole Bonnie and Clyde of it all. It's Butch Cassidy and the Sunlight. It's Thelma and Louise. It's like she's... I think she's actually quite game for that.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
I think she is, you know, very impulsive and purely about passion and feeling and I think that there's a part of her that knows in her gut that it could end badly and... Thank you. Thank you.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Season 3: A Final Goodbye with Aimee Lou Wood
But, you know, I was never too worried. Because a more fatty... You know what that means?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
It's fucked up. They're stuck inside these cages.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
They've still got a right to live free.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Yeah. Could it kill you?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
I don't know. Look, you seem like a really nice lady, but this is not my thing.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
I'm so glad.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
I, you know, I was a huge fan of the show. And I watched the first two seasons being like, I want to be in this, but where do I fit? How would I be in the White Lotus? I don't see it. I don't get it, but I just know I want to work with Mike. And then it did feel a bit like when I saw those audition sides and Chelsea was talking about astrology and Rick being such a Scorpio.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
And I was like, oh my God, oh my God, this could be it. This could actually be it because there was just instant resonance, you know? And she is, I think, Astrologically, you know, she's an Aries and I'm an Aquarius. So I'm a lot more kind of thought led. I can be quite cerebral because I'm air. Chelsea's fire, so she's way more about feeling and passion and impulse.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
and experience and she doesn't really use her brain that much. She uses her heart way more than her brain. So we're very different in like that way. But then I do think that she does have a Scorpio moon like me. So my most private self is actually intensely emotional, very romantic and very loyal. And it's that deep kind of dark shadow side, the stuff with the Scorpio, which is, I think, why
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Rick Scorpio's son is so actually, as much as she kind of berates him for it, there's something tying them together, which might be the sun-moon thing. And I think that, you know, he's, she says all the time, you're so secretive, Rick, but she's actually, we learn more about his life than hers. So she's really good at one finger pointing, three pointing back.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Like, she's always like, you're mysterious. I don't know anything about you. But actually she does have so much mystery to her, but her kind of fiery openness in that Aries is, kind of distracts people from the fact that she's actually deeply, deeply mysterious and doesn't reveal much about her past or where she's from at all. She's all about being the present, being the present.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Let's not even go there. All she says is, bad things have happened to me. So yeah, there's a lot of us that's similar and there's bits of her that I also aspire to be. I really love her assertiveness. She's actually very assertive. With Saxon. She just tells it how it is. It's just, and she does in everything, but she just loves Rick so much and it's driving her crazy.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
No, I've just decided that.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Okay. There was more in the script originally about Rick and Chelsea. how they met and it was very much like a drug fueled night while they were traveling. But I think that, why, what did he say?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
That is definitely what happened. I mean, it's definitely like, and then I think it probably turned into that drug-fueled night that Mike wrote about. But I think, you know, I think she just... I think she, yeah, she will have seen him and thought, bingo, here is a place that I can pour the entirety of myself into. And he's kind of like, I don't want that. But also maybe I do, question mark.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Yeah.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Yeah. But I keep saying this about Mike. Like, I think people would assume that he's quite cynical maybe because the show, what we love about it is that it really does like razor sharp, acerbic,
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
like nails all the worst parts of people and greed and ego and all of that but he's actually a massive optimist and like has loads of hope and loads of enthusiasm and i loved that this it's like people are gonna think people are gonna think like she's using him or you know what there's something going on and i just love the way he's like no the surprise is like it's like a total double bluff it's like right oh no she does just actually bloody love him
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Yeah, it's her mission. It's her mission. And it's great to have a mission. Like, you know, and she's just going to stick to it. And it makes her quite fearless because as long as she has that tunnel vision, she can deal with anything because she's got her life's purpose and it's him. And he's like, oh, my God, why does it have to be me? But also, wow. Wow.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
And he's got so much tenderness for her, really. He just can't express it.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
It was so fun and it felt like a real privilege because I feel like I'm expressing that part of Mike. Like that it felt really intimate because, yeah, it felt like he was expressing that through Chelsea. And so it just felt like a lovely bond and also... gave me that energy, because he's got boundless energy, and I was just kind of mirroring that.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
But also, sometimes when it was the end of a filming day, I was like, I just need to be sad and shy. I need to be sad and shy because she's really, you know, she's so fizzy and... Rick needs to step up and let her have some of the pain and let him have some of the hope. And they need to kind of meet each other in the middle. They can't do that right now.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
He's taking up all the quota for sadness and pain. So she's taking up all the quota for the hope and the joy. And that is a lot. And Walton's so carpe diem. His tempo is so different to Rick's. Like Walton's like, yeah, man. Hey, man, let's get like cocktails and let's dance. So it would sometimes be like a switch of energies. It would be like, that's a wrap.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
And then I would go into like the moon energy and he'd be the sun. So it was quite nice to swap around in real life.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Yeah.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
I think that she, I just keep going back to that song, The Snake by Al Wilson. You know that song? And it's about a woman who finds a snake that's dying on the side of the road and she takes him in and she's like, you're so cute and I'm going to make you better. And then she does. And when she does make him better, he bites her. And she's so shocked.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
And he's like, you knew I was a snake before you brought me in. Like, you know. And I think that the snake motif for Chelsea is really about that. It's about the fact that she can't see that maybe she could be in danger. She doesn't really see it. And so I think that she is... probably quite in denial and confused about why he would release those snakes.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
But there's something in her tummy and her gut that understands it. And she says to him, if you're trying to kill me, you're not going to get rid of me that easy. I'm just going to keep following you. So that is obviously a part of her that is flirting with the idea that he might be a snake and that he might be dangerous and maybe she gets some thrill out of that.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Exactly. She's literally got a snake and gone, mine. And she's hugging it and being like, you're so cute. And everyone else is like, no, he's not. He's not. And she's like, no, he is. He's like my child. He's my baby.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Exactly.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
I mean, I know I tell you this all the time, Dad, but I love working, you know? Yeah. And I love working with you. I mean, I get to learn so much from you.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
Don't you want the big dogs to respect you? What, you want to be neurotic your whole life and die a fucking virgin?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 3: “The Meaning of Dreams” with Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood
And my father, he was a good man. He was a decent man. But I never got to know him, you know, because he was murdered. And I can't get my life back.