‘The White Lotus’ Star Will Sharpe Doesn’t Think Ethan and Cameron Should Wife Swap

Ethan is down bad. The reserved tech bro, played by 36-year-old actor and director Will Sharpe, has otherwise kept things under control for most of The White Lotus season two. He acts as peacemaker when his unhappy wife, Harper (Aubrey Plaza), complains about his obnoxious college roommate Cameron (Theo James) and his wife Daphne (Meghann Fahy). He declines to participate when Cameron brings Italian sex workers up to party in his hotel room. He wakes up early to go running every single morning. On vacation! 

But now, it’s all falling apart. Ethan spent most of episode six with an increasingly pained look on his face, spiraling through paranoid visions of Harper cheating on him with Cameron. (My money’s now on Ethan as one of the murderers.) (And maybe one of the victims.) But before we find out any of that, GQ talked to Sharpe ahead of The White Lotus season two finale. 

GQ: So, Ethan is having a hard time. 

Will Sharpe: Yes, you could say that.

You and Theo James are British, but you’re both playing these real American bro archetypes. Were there any aspects of bro culture you two studied ahead of time?

We definitely talked about their relationship. How much is it a friendship, or is it just that they shared a room in college? Talking with Mike [White], it never felt like they were ever soulmates. One thing is—and I don’t know if this is specific to tech bro culture or male relationships, or maybe it’s more pronounced in American social dynamics—this inherent competitiveness. 

No frenemies in England? 

Frenemies—no, they exist.

One thing Mike did say to me was about his own relatively humble beginnings in Pasadena. He was around people who had a lot of money, and so he talked about Ethan as someone who has always had to work. He got into college because he was smart and he worked hard, not because he had money in his family. Similarly, the money he’s making now in the tech industry is because he’s a brilliant coder, and he’s come up with something that has earned him that. Whereas, Cameron is somebody who has always had that privilege, and so has never known any different. 

Did you get any backstory from Mike about how Ethan and Harper first got together?

We three, collectively, sat down and we talked it through. We decided, well, they’ve probably been together for at least seven or eight years. We meet this couple at their worst, in a way. They’ve been telling themselves that they’re good together, they’re honest with each other, they’re super close, they’re good people. Yet, it quite quickly starts to feel like the communication is not as good as they’ve been telling themselves it is. Obviously they’ve recently come into all this money, which is something they haven’t had before. 

Clearly their relationship has gone awry in some way and they’re both longing to get back to a place where, before the series has started, at some point they fell in love and got married. I think both him and Harper are terrified of the possibility that they’re falling out of love. 

Aubrey and I would talk sometimes about where they’d come from and what their day-to-day life was before they arrived here, trying to just bring a sense of their hinterland, a sense of that history. The first time you see them, they’re already bickering on the boat. We just wanted to invest a sense of their history, because that’s what gives their relationship stakes. If it’s just that they don’t love each other and never did, full stop, there’s nothing to fight for really. But if it’s that they’re trying to get back to that place, then it has more meaning. It makes sense how it’s playing out for Ethan, that it’s so paralyzing to imagine that something that was precious and that you really believed in is actually fragile and possibly broken.

What were those details about their lives outside of The White Lotus that you and Aubrey think up?

There were things like, maybe we met at somebody else’s wedding. I thought that they probably live in New York, but in a bi-coastal way, for Harper’s law work. They probably spend some time in California and San Francisco. We would find ourselves just trying to build for ourselves a sense of that marriage and why it mattered to them.

Do you think that they were aware of the cracks of their relationship beforehand, or was it being far from home and out of their usual routine that exposed them? 

A vacation is necessarily a time of reflection, in a way, because you break out of your day-to-day life and it does put you in an existential place. That can be a lovely thing or, if there are problems that you’ve carried with you, it can be an uncomfortable thing. Also, the fact that Cameron and Daphne are such a different couple to them. The conversations they have with them, the way that they’re interacting with them, I think Harper is the first one who starts to question Ethan and their relationship.

Initially, the way she deals with that is by overcompensating and saying, “I think we’re great, they’re really weird. They just say they never argue, that’s fucked up, what couple doesn’t argue?” Then it graduates into a bit more of well, actually, maybe there’s a problem. 

Something I’ve noticed is that Ethan and Daphne don’t interact one-on-one too much. 

I don’t feel Ethan has a problem with Daphne, particularly. Ethan is finding Cameron increasingly irritating. Then, more than that, ultimately infuriating. But Daphne’s never really a part of that aggression. 

I don’t think Ethan does himself any favors, but there are things that happen to him and that people do to him. He does, in places, take some shit from Cameron and even from Harper as well. Whereas Daphne, when they do interact, it’s very normal. But, yeah, there might be more to come on that, also.

What are your most Sicilian memories of filming in Sicily? 

The food is amazing, obviously. I definitely remember coming back to the UK and tasting groceries, just being like, “This isn’t a tomato.” There was a little kumquat tree in the villa that my family and I were staying in, and my older kid was quite into picking the kumquats.

And there was one night where we got stuck in an alley, because it was too narrow, in a car.

Aubrey Plaza was known for playing pranks during the production. Were you on the receiving end of any of that? 

No, I wasn’t, but there was one prank that she told me about and I was sworn to secrecy. I knew it was going on, but I didn’t play a part in it.

The mysterious sticks in the dressing rooms? 

Yes.

While everyone watches The White Lotus, what are you watching?

I just recently watched Aftersun. Such a beautiful movie, so well executed. Triangle of Sadness, which was hilarious. We’re quite late to the party on this, but we’ve been watching a fair bit of Better Things, the Pamela Adlon show, which is very watchable. Bad Sisters, I really enjoyed. Banshees of Inisherin, also great. 

After every episode, you get a lot of fan theories and takes. I wanted to run one I saw by you. It’s a photo of the two couples together and it says “all their problems could be solved by swapping.” What do you make of that? 

I don’t think that’s correct, but it’s a fun idea. I feel like there is a show in the UK called Wife Swap. Or there used to be. But that’s funny. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.