‘White Lotus’ Star Aimee Lou Wood on the Tragic Finale

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the season three finale of The White Lotus.

Aimee Lou Wood didn’t need White Lotus creator Mike White to tell her that Chelsea was going to die.

Wood, who previously starred in Netflix’s Sex Education, was at her callback audition for the role when she was given a scene in which Chelsea finally hears from her boyfriend Rick that he would also like to be together forever. “My intuition kicked in, and I was so upset reading it. I didn’t have the rest of the scripts. I didn’t have context, but I knew,” she tells Vanity Fair. “She loves him and she dies, and I just knew it.”

Wood says White talked to her after her audition and could tell that she knew what would happen to Chelsea. He confirmed she’d have a tragic ending. “That’s why then at the end I was like, ‘I feel like maybe I might have got that part because he just told me,’” she says.

Chelsea, the astrology-living free spirit who heads to Thailand with her boyfriend Rick (Walton Goggins), has been concerned about their safety since she discovered Rick’s real motives for coming to the island. When Rick heads to Bangkok hoping to meet the man who killed his father, Chelsea is left to worry—and rightfully so, since by that time she’s already been the victim of a robbery and attacked by a snake. “Bad things come in threes,” she tells Rick.

Chelsea ends up being very right. In the bloody finale, Rick returns to Chelsea thinking he’s had closure after facing off with Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), who he thinks murdered his dad. Chelsea and Rick have a few lovely moments, even promising to spend the rest of their lives together (in that scene that Wood read for her audition). But then Rick is filled again with anger after Jim returns to the White Lotus Hotel, and insults Rick’s dead mother. Rick takes Jim’s gun and kills him, and then a shoot-out ensues, and Chelsea is shot as well. Rick is heartbroken, and gets shot as he tries to get help for Chelsea.

The White Lotus is the first show that Wood has been on that’s had a weekly release, meaning that she’s had to keep this secret for months. “I’ve known Chelsea’s fate for a long time, and that’s a lonely thing because no one else can know,” says Wood, who watched the finale with her White Lotus costars. “The relief and the release is so profound, but it feels like it’s more than just about the fact that I can talk about the secrets. It’s something deeper.”

Now finally able to reveal all, Wood spoke to Vanity Fair the day after the finale, and talked about how it felt to film that violent finale, the importance of her pendant, and what we can all learn from Chelsea’s journey.

Vanity Fair: It’s such an emotional finale, and one of the most emotional scenes in the one where Rick and Chelsea talk about being together forever. What was it like to film that?

Aimee Lou Wood: It was my favorite scene, and there was a real sensitivity around that scene. It was late at night, and so Mike was really wanting to make sure that my tiredness levels were okay because that was the scene that I think mattered most to Chelsea, mattered most to Mike in terms of Chelsea’s story and Rick’s story. Rick gets that moment, when he’s smiling because he’s confronted the thing, and that’s Chelsea’s moment. Me and Mike were really emotional at the end of doing that. It is very rare in life that someone gets exactly what they want, like someone gets their exact dream – and as disturbing and distorted as Chelsea’s dreams are, she gets it in that moment. I was just so happy that she got it and that made the death feel less horrific.

What did you think of the way she dies?

Words are Chelsea’s armor –she’s a chatterbox. And all of a sudden she cannot speak. And then he just sees her, and he loves her. He has to do the talking and he has to do the carrying. He has to literally carry her, and she’s been carrying them the whole time.

It feels like in a weird way, Chelsea does get what she wants.

What was that shootout scene like to film?

It was hard. It was really hot. Of course, that was the hottest day. Walton, bless him, he had to carry me so many times on the hottest day. We were both covered in sweat, covered in tears. The stunt coordinator and the crew said it takes a lot of trust and it’s probably gonna be a bit scary [to be carried] because Walton’s controlling the fall. But I just flopped and people were laughing. It felt like I could just do that because it felt right that that is what Chelsea would want. Finally, she gets to be the one that’s being carried.

Was this scene at the end of production for you, so the two of you already had that trust?

Weirdly we did the death stuff, I think, just over halfway through. The journey of Rick and Chelsea was very profound for both of us and was a big moment. I’m sure that [Walton] feels very similar to how I feel today, which is this kind of release of something. I feel like I have permission to let go of anything, and what I loved about her, I can carry on with me. Mike a few times was saying, “have I made the right choice? Are people gonna hate me too much? Maybe I should change who dies.” But I was always so peaceful. I was always like, “you’ve done the right thing. Chelsea has to die.”

I also loved the Chelsea and Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) dynamic, and how she opens him up.

I love Saxon and Chelsea and I love Patrick so much. He’s just the kindest, safest person and I think the reason why people root for Saxon is because Patrick’s goodness shines through. He listens and I don’t think she can handle it. I actually think that she wants to be the seer and not the seen, and he’s trying to see her and he wants to be seen by her. Saxon is reading the book on the boat at the end. He’s still reading it. So, Mike does have faith that Saxon actually might become a better person from this. If Chelsea’s done that, she would love that.

Some fans pointed out that Chelsea’s “Stay Gold” pendant was inspired by the line “Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold,” from The Outsiders, which is the last line spoken before Johnny Cade dies. Was that all planned as a hint to Chelsea’s fate?

That was the one thing for Chelsea that we were really fixed on making sure we got. It got delivered to my house in London – we had two in case one went missing – I had to bring it in my suitcase and travel it over to Thailand and because we didn’t want it getting lost. I remember wearing it and thinking people are gonna clock this and do we want them to clock it? But then at the same time, Mike is the king of the red herring. Because Mike’s so mischievous and he might just pull the rug at the last minute. But when people started noticing it in the past couple of weeks and there was all this stuff coming out, I started to get a little bit like, “oh no, stop writing about it!” But actually, I think it just adds a layer to the magic of it.

How much of Rick and Chelsea’s backstory did the two of you develop? We get hints but we don’t know much about how they met or how long they’ve been together.

Chelsea’s running away from something for sure, and she’s running away from herself and she’s gone traveling. In a bar one night, she sees Rick and she has a gut feeling about him and she approaches him, obviously. Then they just kind of start traveling around together and they have so much fun together and they do loads of drugs together and they party together, but they’re both running away from themselves

People keep saying, “I was so angry that Rick even took Chelsea to Thailand in the first place and put her in danger!” I highly doubt that Rick was going, “Chelsea, please, please come to Thailand with me!” He was probably going, “go home, go away!” He could have bundled her up in a car and sent her off and she would’ve got out at the other end and come straight back. She has choice. She has choice and she has agency.

For people who’ve gone on this journey with Chelsea, what do you feel like are the lessons we should learn from her experience?

I think we should learn that we do have choice. As much as we can enjoy the notion of fate and destiny and all of it, and enjoy the magic of that, it is disempowering because it takes away your choice. Chelsea gets to live in this kind of childlike state of “I am the passenger and I’m just being moved by these greater forces.” She could have been the master of her own destiny more if she’d have just looked inside rather than outside.

What part of Chelsea’s personality would you like to keep?

Her optimism and her hope and her honesty. She’s very honest and I admire that. Chelsea is honest to the bitter end. This is why it’s so wonderful and beautiful: this story is that Chelsea’s got all the best bits of that youthful, like, optimism and bravery and gumption. But the grownup thing is to think about the consequences and take responsibility, which she doesn’t do.

Did you keep anything from set?

No.

Not even the pendant?

Not even the pendant! I have always taken something from every character that I’ve ever played, And for some reason with Chelsea, I didn’t take a thing. I just left it all. And so I think there’s some unconscious reason why I did that.