A Possible White Lotus Prequel May De-Age Jennifer Coolidge's Tanya By 20 Years

Tanya McQuoid could be checking back into The White Lotus after all. Despite the Season 2 finale fate of Jennifer Coolidge’s fan-favorite character, series creator Mike White revealed that a Tanya-centered prequel season is “absolutely” possible. “We were just talking about that,” White said at a Vivid Sydney Festival press conference on June 10, per Deadline. “It’s a funny idea. And making Jennifer, you know, 20 years younger, that would be fun too. I think Jennifer’s like, ‘Sure, let’s do it!’”

Coolidge, who also attended the press conference, already has a filming location in mind. “Australia gets my vote,” the Emmy winner chimed in after White announced his dream is to “hit every continent” during the HBO drama anthology’s run.

So far, ill-fated guests have vacationed at the titular resort in Hawaii, Italy’s Sicily, and the upcoming Season 3 travels to Thailand. “The first season kind of highlighted money, and then the second season is sex,” White explained in an HBO featurette. “I think the third season would be maybe a satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at White Lotus.”

Though a possible Tanya season of The White Lotus would happen well in the future, Coolidge has some creative ideas of how the late heiress could even return for Season 3. “I hope there’s some comeuppance for evil Greg. I think he should, I don’t know, end up in a meat-grinding machine,” she told Jeremy Allen White during a recent Variety “Actors on Actors” conversation, referencing Tanya’s traitorous husband. “If Tanya could come back in any form, maybe she could come back as a seagull and poke Greg’s eyes out.”

Though it remains to be seen if Coolidge’s pitch will come to fruition, White Lotus fans can look forward to the already-confirmed return of Natasha Rothwell’s Belinda, aka the spa worker Tanya left high and dry at the end of Season 1. Even Connie Britton’s Nicole Mossbacher could make a comeback, though HBO has yet to confirm her casting.

“He wanted me to be in the second season, and there was an idea that I loved for the character,” Britton previously revealed to Deadline in July 2022. “Our intention is to do it in the third season. A piece of casting didn’t work in the second season and we’re hoping to [do] that in the third season. I would love to see a spinoff on every character in that show.”

The question of when White Lotus will return is equally up in the air. HBO exec Francesca Orsi told Deadline in May that the series “was ideally looking to go in 2024,” but now “there’s some question about timing” amid the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike.