HBO’s The White Lotus began with a tease: By the end of the series, someone would wind up in a coffin. Six delicious episodes later, that someone turned out to be Armond (Murray Bartlett), the increasingly vexed manager of the titular Hawaiian resort where rich guests’ entitlement runs amok.
Unlike the poop he deposits in a suitcase belonging to fratty nemesis Shane (Jake Lacy), Armond’s death is an accident. Fed up, he breaks into Shane’s suite seeking revenge, only to have Shane return moments later to discover the fateful defecation. Hearing the rustling of an intruder, Shane stabs Armond as he rounds a corner—a casualty that caps off the characters’ relentless cold war. While Armond dies, the blithe smile we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on Bartlett’s face takes its final bow.
It’s impossible to crown an MVP from The White Lotus’s starry cast, but Bartlett, whose past credits include Guiding Light, Looking, Tales of the City, and a memorable season four episode of Sex and the City, is certainly a contender. Over the course of the show, he goes from gleeful captain to untamed malcontent. Vanity Fair spoke to the actor via Zoom about Armond’s demise, an informative backstory that got cut from the show, and what it was like to poop in Lacy’s luggage.
Vanity Fair: Let’s start with the finale. What was it like for you to find out that Armond would be the one to die?
Murray Bartlett: I didn’t expect it, and I think it’s kind of genius. I don’t know how you would end that character and that story other than this. It just seems so perfect to me because, in a strange, warped way, it’s sort of like he’s released from this hell. He’s been so worn down by these obnoxious people displaying the ugliest sides of human nature that it’s like, Fuck it, this sucks; I’m out. Not that he planned it, but in a way it’s like he’s going to take it to an extreme.
How much did you and Mike White discuss the final shot of Armond? We see you in the bathtub with this smile spreading across your face. We’re left with the sense, as you’re saying, that Armond is finally at peace.
The script is brilliantly written, so a lot of it is in the script. We didn’t talk a lot about the scenes before we did them, and I loved that. Mike creates this incredible sense of play, so we just tried a bunch of shit. It’s such a wonderful experience as an actor to be in that kind of situation where there’s this freedom to try stuff. There’s freedom to be too big or not big enough. That moment really came out of that sense of play and just trying stuff out. That felt fitting.
Tell me every detail about filming the poop scene.
Every detail?
Every one.
I mean, it’s so incredibly graphic when you watch it. I couldn’t believe it! I did not imagine it like that. I don’t know what I was imagining, but it’s shocking in exactly the way it should be shocking—but much more shocking than I imagined.
Fortunately, that was a fair way through the shoot. It was a great crew. I completely trust Mike, and there’s a sense of trust and respect on set. But any intimate scene like that is bizarre and weird, and you feel a little strange going into it. I’m shitting in a suitcase! What are you going to do? There’s no way around it. It’s just a very strange situation to be in with 50 people watching you.
One of the best things about that scene is the gleeful, vindictive smile on Armond’s face. In fact, throughout the entire series, you wield an exaggerated, facetious grin. Were you conscious of that?
Not really. But it was written in the character, and that’s how it manifested for me. I was taking this incredibly complex, rich character that Mike had written and putting it into my body, and that’s what happened.
Armond has an intense energy. He’s a real showman. There’s a backstory with him that didn’t make it into the show, but I carried it and it was really helpful to me: He wanted to be an actor, and that dream wasn’t realized. So this role that he plays is the realization of that. That really made sense to me. He relishes that and fully inhabits the moment. There’s a glee in the passion and the dramatics because that’s the kind of personality he has—the personality that wanted to be a theatrical actor. Even though the scenes that alluded to that are gone, that was a super-helpful key for me.
That makes so much sense. The whole thing is one big performance for him, and eventually one gets tired of performing day in and day out.
Yeah, and for him, I think you forget when you’re performing and when you’re not performing. The two become fused, and that’s very confusing. It’s exhausting to keep up that front, and you’re wondering who the hell you are underneath it.
Many of your best scenes are with Jake Lacy. Did the two of you have fun developing the tit-for-tat tug-of-war these characters have going on?
Yeah, Jake is awesome. We didn’t know each other before, but he’s such a committed, dedicated actor. We probably overprepare, if anything. We’re so ready when we come to set—we’re those kinds of actors, but we didn’t know that about each other. The first take, we felt like lions being let out of cages. It was such a wonderful surprise for both of us. We were both just ready to go, and I feel like we really met each other with the strong intentions that the characters have. These scenes are perfect conflicts because each character wants one thing that the other character can’t give them. They’re long dialogue scenes, and they’re so fun to play. To do it with someone you can really fire off of is the best feeling as an actor. It’s like playing a great game of tennis.
And what about cute little Lukas Gage, Armond’s employee, who sort of becomes his plaything over the course of the season?
Lukas is so awesome. It’s such a bizarre relationship that they have, and it was really fun to try to navigate through all of that. We had to do some quite intimate stuff together, so it’s always great to work with someone who’s very open and free and easy to communicate with. He’s a total sweetheart.
That story line takes a turn once Armond has the drugs and decides he wants to get Dillon into bed. I found it refreshing that Dillon, who’s ostensibly straight, doesn’t act bothered by a man propositioning him.
There is a sort of creepy aspect to it.
Yes, Armond is a bit predatory, of course.
In terms of the character thing for Lukas, it is a reflection of younger people today being a little more fluid in their sexuality. They probably don’t have as many hang-ups as my generation grew up with, which is super refreshing. But I wouldn’t like to present it in the light of “it’s so great that he just gave in to Armond!” It’s complicated, but there’s definitely a creepy, manipulative aspect to it.
Coming from your boss, very much so.
Yeah. It’s interesting how Armond has to deal with the entitled, privileged guests wielding their power—but then in turn he wields power over the people who are under him, which is disappointing and a reflection of stuff that we need to be on guard about. That’s unfortunately what happens in human nature. We’re like, Yeah, I’m super open and aware of privilege, and then we turn around and do stuff that we’re not even aware of that takes advantage of our privilege and power over others. The show really deals with the levels of that and the fallout of that in such a funny but sharp way that makes you think.
Some of the shoot happened while the actual resort was closed to the public due to COVID, so it was mostly just the cast and crew on the grounds. What kind of atmosphere did that create? Was it a beach party the whole time?
It was very strictly monitored in terms of COVID—we were tested every other day, and we couldn’t leave the resort at all except to go down to the beach. But we were at the beach! And we were plucked out of the pandemic and taken to Hawaii, so we all came to it with this incredible sense of good fortune and joy and wonder. Suddenly we have this incredible resort all to ourselves, at least for the first chunk of time. It was dreamy, literally—it felt like a dream; it was very odd and very bonding.
We hung out a lot, but it was an intense schedule and we were very busy. We were making friendships and forging relationships, so that can’t help but bleed into the dynamics in the show. It was a very singular experience that we will all hopefully never have again.
Please tell me you guys at least had a killer wrap party.
We couldn’t! We had a dinner on the last night. We did get shut down a couple of times for COVID, just for a few days, so we were behind and had to go back in February for a week to pick up the scenes we hadn’t finished, which was really lovely. The regulations were a little looser then, so we could leave the hotel and go explore a little bit. That sort of felt like our party, to be able to go back and see people again. The main shoot was a really intense schedule, and by the end everyone was exhausted.
Tell me what Looking did for your career. You were kind of the MVP of that show, and I wonder whether you felt like it opened doors at the time.
First of all, it was one of the best life experiences I’ve had. I made lifelong friends. I loved every second of working on that show. Not that I hadn’t had a good time on other shows, but that was a revelation to me. There’s a lot of similarities between that show and White Lotus, actually, in terms of the joy factor. But there was something extra special about Looking. For a lot of us in the cast, we thought, Oh, my God, working can be this much fun? Not everyone loved it, but the people who did really loved it and got something meaningful from it, which felt great. And it rippled out into countries where people can’t live freely as queer people, and that was extraordinary.
Do people still come up to you to talk about your Sex and the City episode?
Yeah, sometimes. It used to happen a lot when I looked like that character—when I was a bit younger. Now I’ve got a gray beard. For the first 10 or 15 years, it was incredible the way the tendrils of that show reached so far. That was my first job in the U.S. It was a great job. I was terrified, but I was so excited and feel so proud to have been part of that show. People are such fans of that show, and it’s still very present in people’s minds.
There are only a handful of shows that people know on such a granular level like that. When you booked the episode, did you know how big of a deal it was?
Oh, my God, yes. I was peeing my pants. I’d been in the U.S. not very long. I’d fallen in love with New York City, and I was playing with fantasies of how I could stay. I used to go every Wednesday night to this thing called Naked Angels, which is a forum where writers have actors read their work. It was an amazing dynamo of creativity. I met this guy who was friends with this woman who was friends with a producer on Sex and the City, and that person suggested me. So it was one of those crazy New York stories where they were looking for a non-American.