The same irreverent personality of Tanya McQuoid (‘The White Lotus’) is a trait that seems to have raised the actress Jennifer Coolidge as a reference behind the scenes years after being the eternal high school in many movies and television series.
Face known for playing Paulette, Elle Woods’ best friend in the saga ‘Legally blonde‘which will launch a third installment soon, or for putting himself in the shoes of Stifler’s mother in ‘American Pie’, Coolidge has become in the last two years a professional scene-stealer in real life thanks, in part, to the character who shone in season 1 of ‘The White Lotus’, the HBO Max series, and who repeats the adventure in the second installment of the fiction set in Italy.
Tanya McQuoid-Hunt is probably the biggest enigma that contains ‘The White Lotus’, even managing to put aside the mystery and thriller plot that has accompanied the two seasons of this fiction up to now. Ever since she sought to free herself from the bond that tied her to her mother in the first installment of the series, the public has been waiting impatiently for the character played by Jennifer Coolidge finds her place in the worldwith that satire as a backdrop and the Martian aspect of everything that is lived in the hotel chain of ‘The White Lotus’.
The character, despite being selfish at many points —with Belinda Lindsey, the spa manager in the first season played by the actress and writer Natasha Rothwell, or with her own assistant in the most recent chapters, Portia, whom she gives life actress Haley Lu Richardson—and indecipherable in many other moments of the plot, He has achieved what the rest of the privileged guests of the series have not achieved: transcend. In a unique way, moreover, with which it has become the official scene-stealer of the series, with the permission of Sydney Sweeney in the first season.
“Tanya is such a fun character to write and working with Jennifer is one of the best experiences of this series and of my career. I’m definitely open to follow [trabajando] with Jennifer Coolidge, if HBO allows us to continue with the series in general”, has expressed the creator, director and writer of the series, Mike White.
In fact, as the actress herself has revealed in previous interviews, White thought directly of her when she created the character of the millionaire Tanya McQuoid-Hunt. “She played my love interest in a movie, like 12 years ago, called ‘Gentlement Broncos,’ so we know each other. He He’s tried to write some stuff for me, he even tried to sell a show for HBO about another character”, Coolidge said in an interview in which he also pointed out that he was about to reject doing the series at the last minute due to the fact that filming began in the middle of the covid pandemic, after home confinement, and Coolidge had been eating pizza and ice cream for “literally eight months”, in his own words.
“I wasn’t in good shape or mentally well because I thought every day that we were going to die. I didn’t see an end to this,” he said in that sense, so the fear of repositioning himself in front of a camera was there. “If it had been a play, I would have been able to manage it, but It was on camera and I just wanted to get away, even if it was a brilliant performance.“added the actress.
His way of inhabiting the second season of ‘The White Lotus’ has been radically opposite, even fulfilling the dream of choose what he wanted to be on an Italian vacation. White, who kept Coolidge as the link between the two seasons of this anthological series, has also made artifice possible. “If we were to go to Italy, what would you like to do?” she asked him at one point.
The answer comes with a scooter, like the model Tanya gets on in the pink outfit in chapter two before her husband, Greg, leaves Italy on a suspicious business trip.
The protagonist who does not belong to the opera
‘The White Lotus’ has served to deploy a platform before a woman who seems, at certain moments, to unfold between two worlds as Jennifer Coolidge and as Tanya McQuoid-Hunt.
Traditionally set aside for the role of a strange high school, in recent times the actress has become an unexpected protagonist, who partly brings together a certain way of being that does not fit anything with how Hollywood seems to have to move, and in addition to the series of White also stars in the series ‘Vigilante’ co-created by Ryan Murphy for Netflix.
At this stage in which Coolidge seems to have finally earned “validation” by Hollywood, there is the paradox of masterful scenes like Tanya’s in the opera during chapter 5 of ‘The White Lotus’.
Entering the Palermo theater where the show is going to be seen dressed in a hooded dress as if it were Kylie Minogue, Tanya McQuoid and, therefore, the actress behind the character mutates like Julia Robberts did in ‘Pretty Woman’, becoming the worthy leading lady with the viewer already in her favor. The scene where Tanya irreverently greets the Queen of Sicily could be perfectly equivalent to that “I almost pissed in my panties” that Vivian blurts out to the woman who asks her if she liked the opera in the Garry Marshall film.
It’s also addictive to watch how Coolidge challenges Hollywood from within with certain natural moments that, if it were another celebrity, more than one publicist would see with doubtful eyes. In September of this 2022, when Jennifer Coolidge took the stage to collect the Emmy award from her to best supporting actress in the category of miniseries or anthology series, his speech was almost hypnotic and reflected the behavior outside the corseted that is conspicuous by its absence on these occasions.
Here’s Jennifer Coolidge’s hilarious #Emmys acceptance speech. https://t.co/h3GrtHDmKy pic.twitter.com/BgDn0Ct0my
—Variety (@Variety) September 13, 2022
With just a “hello” he already had the public in his pocket for his speaking tone. Shortly after, she revealed that she had taken a lavender bath to be able to put on the dress she was wearing at the gala and, in the end, she was surprised by the typical piped music that asks winners to shorten when they receive an award, so she decided to shoot for the healthy: dance. “This happens once in a lifetime“He said moments before. Among the audience, Mike White himself could be seen laughing with Coolidge.
In addition, like his character in ‘The White Lotus’, Coolidge shows in many moments not only having and knowing how to do humor, but also move perfectly like a stage animal in intimate conversations, as well reflected in the actress’s interview for People about normative beauty and beauty canons (you can see it above). If Tanya toasts in ‘The White Lotus’ to “living for beauty”, in real life Jennifer Coolidge even offers theories about how boring the most beautiful people are.