Aimee Lou Wood Confirmed That Mike White Worried Everyone Would Hate Him for the Finale

"He came up to me a few times and said, ‘Are people going to hate me too much? I don’t know if this is too far,’” Wood said of The White Lotus creator. Well, it was too far, Mike.

By Audra Heinrichs  |  April 8, 2025 | 5:00pm
Photo: Getty Images EntertainmentTV
Aimee Lou Wood Confirmed That Mike White Worried Everyone Would Hate Him for the Finale

On Tuesday, British GQ published my favorite post-The White Lotus finale interview with the woman behind my favorite character this season, Aimee Lou Wood. While the conversation didn’t include an answer as to what the hell is currently happening with the actor and her onscreen soulmate, Walton Goggins, it did offer a trove of other treasures.

Of her casting, Wood recalled hearing how hard Mike White, the acclaimed series creator and director, fought for her to be Chelsea (“It was honestly from the nicest place, but my little head goes: ‘HBO didn’t want me. And I know why HBO didn’t want me, it’s because I’m ugly.”). And of spending a bit too much time in America lately, Wood said she became frustrated with how obsessed she was with work (“I don’t want to not be thinking about fucking progressing my career for one second, because I don’t even fucking care about progressing my career.”). The real gems, however, came when she was asked about that shattering season finale, which not only culminated in her character’s demise, but her partner Rick’s.

Frankly, anyone with eyes could’ve seen the deaths of the story’s supposed twin souls coming, given Rick’s damage and Chelsea’s devotion to him despite it. Still, it was truly tragic to see those two wind up in twin body bags. And not even in the funny way that Tanya McQuoid-Hunt’s death was in season 2. According to Wood, even White had his doubts about it during production.

“He doubted it a lot. He came up to me a few times and said, ‘Are people going to hate me too much? I don’t know if this is too far,’” Wood told British GQ. “She’s the most hopeful character on the show and that’s why she has to die, but obviously on a human level it is really fricking sad.” Indeed. The moral of the story? There’s not enough room in the bed for hope when you’re already sharing it with a man’s demons. Also, this is 2025. There’s no room for hope at all!

Wood also shared that when the time came to shoot the death scene, she felt a sense of unshakeable dread—so much so that she couldn’t stop calling her friends to talk about aging and thinking about certain ill-fated figures in pop culture.

“I was obsessed with Amy Winehouse and Brittany Murphy, all these women I love and admire who died too young,” she recalled. “I look at them and see what they could have done. And they didn’t get to do it.” First, what a Chelsea thing to say. Second, it’s just occurred to me why I loved Chelsea so much (spoiler alert: it’s not because we’re both chaotic Aries with an “I-can-fix-him” complex). It’s because she’s very Amy and Britney-coded. Curious! Childlike! Kind! You see the parallels?

Further, Wood imagined an alternate universe in which Chelsea would’ve chosen Saxon: “Why does the choice have to be between two men? She could have chosen herself but she is a delulu romantic. That’s her thing to bear in this lifetime.” She also talked about what it was like to watch Patrick Schwarzenegger and Sam Nivola kiss. In short: pretty fucking weird.

“We’d been there for quite a while before that scene, so we really in our brains started to see those three as siblings,” Wood said. “It was like watching brothers kissing.”

Ah, the Mike White universe…where good people go to die and bad ones go to do incest.

 
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