\n\tAnd, of course, who will end up dead at the end of the upcoming season of Mike White\u2019s all-star bacchanal \u2014 because, of course, somebody always does.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t think I can say,\u201d Long offers with a polite smile whenever a forbidden question is lobbed at her over a Zoom call from Saint Tropez. \u201cLet\u2019s steer away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tStill, there is one detail about the show \u2014 which White has teased will be \u201ca bit about fame\u201d \u2014 that Long does let slip. She acknowledges that the character she portrays is a young actress promoting a film at the Cannes Film Festival. Which, when you think about it, is entirely fitting \u2014 in a deeply Mike White sort of way \u2014 considering that Long has never been an actress before. Until very recently, she was a 25-year-old model from Tulsa whose closest brush with the business had been helping her actor-boyfriend record audition tapes in a bedroom in the Valley.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tMarissa Long<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotography by Lenka Ulrichova<\/p>\n
\n\tBut then, one day last November, she decided to tape one of her own \u2014 and ended up with a leading role on the most prestigious HBO series since Bran Stark ascended to the Iron Throne, or at least since Tom Wambsgans took over Waystar Royco.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt was just the craziest thing that could ever happen, the very definition of surreal,\u201d she says of her astounding beginner\u2019s luck. \u201cMy boyfriend was truly only happy for me, but he was in shock. It was just like, \u2018Whoa.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tEven before she landed the White Lotus gig \u2014 cast alongside such seasoned performers as Steve Coogan, Vincent Cassel, Sandra Bernhard, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina and Heather Graham, among a half-dozen others \u2014 Long was clearly on cordial terms with the universe. Although she grew up about as far from the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur as is geographically possible \u2014 Oklahoma, where her dad manages properties for an industrial gas company and her mom works in holistic health \u2014 she got noticed early in life. By 15, she had signed with a local modeling agency and was soon flying around the country doing fashion shoots for Garage Clothing, Hollister and Kylie Cosmetics.<\/p>\n
\n\tActing was not on her to-do list. Moving to L.A. definitely was. She packed her bags two days after her 18th birthday, settling at first in Koreatown (\u201cIt was the cheapest apartment that I could find\u201d) while continuing to model. Then, about five years ago, at a party in Malibu, she met her boyfriend \u2014 Tanner Zagarino, who has a growing resume of his own, playing the gay fraternity brother on season three of The Summer I Turned Pretty and the impossibly handsome teen who makes Jason Segel choke on a grape on season two of Shrinking.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat\u2019s when Long learned about self-tapes.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tMarissa Long<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotography by Lenka Ulrichova<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe did hundreds of them,\u201d she says of the auditions she helped Zagarino record. \u201cI would just be all these random characters for him behind our iPhones. We had so much fun with it. And he would encourage me. He was like, \u2018You should try an acting class.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSo, she did, then signed with her boyfriend\u2019s manager, Brandon Bisig at Canopy Media Partners \u2014 who also happens to rep Adam DiMarco, Michael Imperioli\u2019s son in White Lotus\u2019 second season \u2014 and within a few months was recording her own very first audition tape, this time with Tanner feeding her lines from the other side of the phone.<\/p>\n
\n\tTurned out it was a doozy.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019d been looking for a while \u2014 we must have seen at least 100 actors, no exaggeration,\u201d says White Lotus executive producer Dave Bernad. \u201cBut then we saw Marissa\u2019s audition, and the reaction was immediate. It felt like we finally found her. Even on the tape, she had such authenticity. She just lights up the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLong\u2019s reaction to landing the part was pretty immediate, as well. \u201cI was in my bedroom closet getting ready to go to breakfast with Tanner and my manager called,\u201d she remembers. \u201cI\u2019d never had a more physical response to any moment in my life. I was weeping and jumping for joy all in one go. It was really unique.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShe\u2019s been shooting in France since April \u2014 the whole season takes about six months to complete \u2014 learning the job on the job. \u201cShe\u2019s not experienced enough to know some of the different on-set vernaculars, so you have to be a little patient,\u201d says Bernad. \u201cBut she\u2019s very natural and very comfortable on camera, which is something you can\u2019t teach. It\u2019s just an inherent quality some actors have, and she has it. I was on the set last week watching a scene and I was shocked. I was thinking to myself, \u2018I can\u2019t believe this is the first time she\u2019s doing this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tNeither can Long. \u201cI\u2019m having the time of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cThe cast and all of us, we\u2019ve gotten really close really fast because we\u2019re all together in this beautiful place. Every day we wake up, we go outside, we\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my God, this is the coolest thing of all time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tMarissa Long<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotography by Lenka Ulrichova<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a list of some of the things Marissa Long isn\u2019t allowed to talk about. The name of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60,9697],"class_list":["post-506294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-the-white-lotus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}