White Lotus Season 3 Cast Guide: Every New And Returning Character

This article reveals details about the "White Lotus" Season 3 premiere, so beware of spoilers.

"The White Lotus" is back for its third season, and this time, creator Mike White — who won multiple Emmys for the show's first two outings — is bringing audiences to Thailand to see who's getting murdered. So, what can we expect? Probably some foreboding yet gorgeous shots of the Thai landscape, friction between the staff members of the fictional luxury White Lotus hotel in the Asian country, and a star-studded cast. Season 1, set in Hawaii's beautiful Maui, featured pretty phenomenal performers like Connie Britton, Natasha Rothwell, Steve Zahn, Sydney Sweeney, Molly Shannon, Jake Lacy, Murray Bartlett, and Jennifer Coolidge. Then, in Season 2, which took place in the Sicilian city of Taormina, Michael Imperioli, Aubrey Plaza, Meghann Fahy, Theo James, F. Murray Abraham, Leo Woodall, and Haley Lu Richardson, among others, joined Coolidge.

Coolidge is no longer on the series — and if you're curious as to why, go back and watch Season 2 of "The White Lotus" immediately — but Rothwell is back for the latest season of HBO's hit anthology series. But who's appearing alongside Rothwell's massage therapist Belinda in Season 3 of "The White Lotus?" As usual, White has brought some real superstars together to play in his proverbial sandbox, so here are the actors appearing in Season 3 — and who they're portraying.

The first two seasons of "The White Lotus" both featured a family traveling to the in-universe resort, and in Season 3, that role falls to the Ratliffs from North Carolina. Patriarch Timothy Ratliff, played by Jason Isaacs, seems to be hiding something related to the family company — his eldest son Saxon, portrayed by Patrick Schwarzenegger, works there too — and bristles at the idea that he'll have to give up his cell phone for wellness' sake during his time at the White Lotus. His wife, Victoria Ratliff (Parker Posey), notes that the family usually goes to the Caribbean, but this tropical paradise is fine, too.

The two remaining Ratliffs are the family's only daughter Piper, played by Sarah Catherine Hook, and Lochlan, played by Sam Nivola ... and based on the interactions we see between the kids in the first episode, Piper mostly does her own thing, while Saxon and Lochlan have a strange sort of rivalry. Clearly, there's a lot the Ratliffs are leaving unsaid, so it's safe to say we'll learn more of their secrets as the season progresses. As for where you've seen these performers before? Isaacs notably played Lucius Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" films, Posey has appeared in everything from "Josie & the Pussycats" to "Beau is Afraid," Schwarzenegger showed up in "The Staircase" and "American Sports Story" recently, Hook was in the "Cruel Intentions" reboot series, and Nivola popped up in both "White Noise" and "Eileen."

Another core group in the third season of "The White Lotus" is a trio of longtime friends on an overdue vacation together — Laurie (Carrie Coon), Kate (Leslie Bibb), and Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan). Jaclyn, a successful actor who appears on an unnamed TV show, has brought Kate, who lives in Texas with her family, and the recently divorced lawyer Laurie along for the trip of a lifetime, but the three old friends clearly have some beefs they need to squash. All of the things they say to each other in the show's very first episode are wildly passive aggressive, and they definitely love pairing off in different combinations to gossip about whichever one of them isn't there at the moment. (It's really funny, honestly.)

So, who plays these new characters? Coon is an HBO mainstay at this point; she led its critically beloved series "The Leftovers" and also currently stars on "The Gilded Age," but you might also know her from movies like "Gone Girl" and the new "Ghostbusters" films. Elsewhere, Bibb, who's one of the funniest performers in the entire industry (and is criminally underrated), was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in both "Iron Man" and its first sequel — before later reprising the role of Christine Everheart in the animated series "What If...?" in 2021 — and recently, she led the ensemble of the Apple TV+ show "Palm Royale." As for Monaghan, she, too, is an HBO veteran — she played a supporting role in the first season of "True Detective" — and also portrays Julia Meade in the "Mission: Impossible" movies.

It's smart that "The White Lotus" always gives an equal focus to the staff of the hotel. In Season 3 of the series, however, there's a little twist on this formula — Belinda, the spa manager from the Maui location portrayed by Natasha Rothwell in Season 1, is staying at the Thailand hotel for several months to learn more from their team. After Season 1, where Belinda was promised her own business by Jennifer Coolidge's wealthy but flighty guest Tanya McQuoid and ultimately betrayed, it's refreshing to see her back in action and get to learn more about her in a different setting. Alongside Rothwell, the various members of the resort's staff are played by Tayme Thapthimthong (who portrays security guard Gaitok), Lalisa Manobal (who plays wellness expert Mook), and Lek Patravadi (who plays the hotel's beautiful, older, and mysterious owner Sritala).

Rothwell recently created and starred in the Hulu series "How to Die Alone" (which was, unfortunately, canceled after one season), and on the big screen, she's shown up in projects like "Wonka" and the "Sonic the Hedgehog" movies. Meanwhile, Thapthimthong and Patravadi are probably new to you unless you're familiar with Thai cinema, but Manobal likely looks familiar ... because she's more commonly known as Lisa, a member of the K-Pop group BLACKPINK. (This is her first acting role.)

In Season 2 of "The White Lotus," two couples — Will Sharpe, Aubrey Plaza, Meghann Fahy, and Theo James — spent pretty much all of their time together, and that may yet be true in the third season as well ... although the age differences between the couples this time around is very different. The first duo we meet is Rick Hatchett (Walton Goggins), a guy who clearly seems like something is bothering him that he definitely does not want to discuss (he also appears to take a special interest in Sritala's husband, the co-owner of the hotel, immediately upon arrival), and his young paramour Chelsea, played by Aimee Lou Wood. During an argument between the two, Chelsea heads to the hotel bar alone and strikes up a conversation with a gorgeous woman named Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), who's staying with her older boyfriend Gary ... and, as we learn in the Season 1 premiere, Gary is actually Greg, whom we met in Season 1 and who's played by Jon Gries.

Gries, of course, has appeared in both seasons of "The White Lotus" (and, just in case you forgot, he also played Uncle Rico in "Napoleon Dynamite"). Le Bon, a French Canadian model and actor, appeared in recent films like "Fresh" and also voiced the French version of Joy in "Inside Out" and its sequel. As for Aimee Lou Wood, you definitely recognize her if you've watched the Netflix comedy "Sex Education," where she played the main role of Aimee Gibbs. Finally, Goggins is, of course, an industry staple, and his resumé is as extensive as it is impressive. Most recently, however, you might have seen him as Baby Billy Freeman in "The Righteous Gemstones" and Cooper Howard, also known as "The Ghoul," in the hit Amazon series "Fallout."

"The White Lotus" airs new episodes on Sunday nights at 9 P.M. EST on Max and HBO.