This week’s Take Ten guest is the inimitable Parker Posey.
Emmy nominated for her role of Victoria Ratliff in The White Lotus, Posey has recently inspired viewers around the world to shout “Piper noooooo” Victoria-style, and to possibly channel Victoria this Halloween (watch the video for Posey’s instructions on that).
In the Take Ten video interview, Posey reveals she has not yet seen The White Lotus. However, she read all the scripts up front when she took the role, and recalls being so entranced that she actually blanked out which characters died in the finale. “I could tell you how I felt reading it,” she says. “I got so carried away with the story that I didn’t remember who got shot and died, because I loved Rick [Walton Goggins] and Chelsea [Aimee Lou Wood]. Then, when I met them it was even bigger and better.”
Fortunately, Posey has an alternate ending in mind. “I’ve been pitching it for a while now,” she says. “Victoria Ratliff in the water on a boat in a Lorazepam commercial.” Posey also gets into who would win in a one-line-off between Victoria Ratliff and Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya McQuoid character…
Posey’s inspiration for Victoria’s character came from her own upbringing in the South, she says. “She is a mix of characters and accents that I heard growing up,” she says. “I said the lines in my head of that kind of cadence. I practiced a lot so it was technical, and then I had fun with it. I’m from the South, and it’s full of characters. The dialects alone and the way people talk is so charming and funny.”
Parker Posey as Victoria Ratliff in ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3
Courtesy of Max
Speaking of accents, Posey says there are a couple she hasn’t explored yet, but would love to have a go at: “I’d love to do an English part. Or Boston. Park the caaarr.”
She also says she didn’t have to help her English co-star and onscreen husband Jason Isaacs with his North Carolina accent, although they did watch the reality show Southern Charm as research. “He’s got a great ear,” she says. “You know, the English love their dialects, and the English and the South have a similar cadence.”
Creating Victoria had a deeply personal resonance for Posey, in that she felt like she was honoring her family, especially her late father. “You know, my dad was a very funny man,” she says. “Both my parents are funny people, and my extended family too, dramatic and funny, but my dad, he said, ‘Parker. You are so funny.’ I love that this came about after my dad’s passing, because I got to carry him in this performance.”
Posey also gets into her favorite memories of being on The White Lotus set. “One of my favorite memories is landing there [in Thailand], going to my room, seeing insects in the background, smoke coming out of a [mosquito repellant] coil. And then [show creator] Mike White comes out of the woods. He’s like, ‘Hi!’ He’s got like this hat on. He’s sweating, he’s red. He’s appeared out of nowhere…”
Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey in ‘The White Lotus’
HBO
As a dancer growing up, Posey says she loved seeing co-star LiSA (Lalisa Manobal) as Mook, performing the ceremonial dance scenes shot at the Rosewood Phuket resort. “One of my favorite moments of beauty was watching Lisa perform the night scenes at the Rosewood. It’s such a beautiful country and kingdom and seeing Lisa and the rest of the dancers rehearse that scene on stage with the costumes, it really looked like an apparition. It looked like they came down from the sky.”
Posey has Martin McDonagh’s film Wild Horse Nine coming up, in which she will reunite with White Lotus co-star Sam Rockwell, but she is also mulling over revisiting a couple of her previous roles, starting with Josie and the Pussycats – which, she says, already has a reboot of sorts in the works. “You’re reminding me, I need to call my agent, ” she says. “I heard about it, but I don’t know what’s going on with it. A sequel to Josie and the Pussycats.”
Add to that, with her Scream 3 history as Jennifer Jolie, who met her untimely end in the film, Posey has a really fun and different idea for the Scream franchise: “I’ve been trying to pitch my idea for Stab, the Scream movie,” she says. “The movie-within-the-movie called Stab that, of course, I would be alive in, and I would be able to be in it.”
Courteney Cox and Parker Posey in ‘Scream 3’ (2000)
Courtesy Everett Collection
This is Posey’s second Emmy nomination, her first being for her role in last year’s Mr & Mrs Smith, and she has long been known as “Queen of the Indies” – a title bestowed upon her by Time magazine in 1997 – for her beloved roles in films like Party Girl, The House of Yes, The Doom Generation and Christopher Guest’s mockumentary-style film Waiting For Guffman.
The White Lotus Season 3 is streaming on HBO Max.