Where was The White Lotus filmed?

Adam DiMarco: It was the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. When I got there and saw my view, I cried. It was so nice. Socially it was another planet at times and time really slowed down because it was off season and there were no other guests. Kind of spooky. We had to talk—like our summer camp was actually a Four Seasons hotel where we could have a movie night at this restaurant. The best was the karaoke night.

MF: I didn’t sing too much.

AD: I think Meghan abstained from singing, she was modest because she was on Broadway. She was probably stepping on some Spice Girls when the mic rolled around. Haley [Lu Richardson] and I sang “Summer Nights” by Grease.

At the pool of the San Domenico Palace in Taormina

Fabio Lovino/HBO

You filmed with some born and raised Italians – did they take you to school?

ADVERTISEMENT: [Beatrice Grannò, Simona Tabasco, and Sabrina Impacciatore] they all actually live in Rome, so they experienced something new with us. They’re also trying to speak a dialect, so we were all kind of in a new place. Sabrina’s a pretty well-known actress over there, so sometimes we dropped her name to get into clubs or whatever. That was [Aubrey Plaza’s] Idea which is funny imagining that Aubrey has to call drop to get in anywhere.

The characters definitely leave the premises more often than their Season 1 counterparts – tell me your favorite spot to watch and film it.

DB: The city of Noto, where the third episode of the season takes place at the Palazzo. It’s just an incredible baroque town in the middle of nowhere in southern Sicily. There’s actually a Chef’s Table episode about this restaurant called Cafe Sicilia in Noto, and it’s probably the best dessert breakfast — it’s called granita, basically Italian ice cream — I’ve ever had in my life. When we were shooting we were in the middle of this huge flower festival where the city was covered in blossoms. The difficult thing is that the palazzo is actually in Palermo, and [Tom Hollander’s] Palazzo in Palermo is actually in Noto. They are switched. The reason is very simple – the Palazzo Noto was very tasteless and appropriate for the party later in the season to be thrown by Hollander’s character. And the one in Palermo is snake-shaped and softer, for that kind of girls’ night out between Daphne and Harper.