Canadian star Adam DiMarco enters a new season of The White Lotus | Radio-Canada News

A second season of HBO’s social satire The White Lotus premiered on Sunday – and its Canadian star, Adam DiMarco, says he still wonders if the whole experience was a dream.

“I had read the script, I had seen it several times before the premiere, I went to the premiere, and I was still picking up things, subtleties and hints,” he said in an interview with qit’s Tom Power.

“I’m excited to see the rest of the season and remember it was real.”

Set in the fictional resort town of White Lotus – where restless hotel staff attend to every request of their ultra-rich, ultra-moaning guests – every season begins with a corpse. You just don’t know who, or why, or how.

DiMarco co-stars in Season 2 as Albie di Grasso, a 20-year-old who accompanies his sex-addicted father, Dominic (The Sopranos‘ Michael Imperioli), and his lustful grandfather Bert (Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham) at the seaside resort location in Sicily.

The getaway is meant to be an exploration of the family’s legacy and an escape after Dominic is caught cheating on Albie’s mother.

WATCH | The White Lotus Season 2 trailer:

DiMarco says he was at home on set with Imperioli – who rose to fame as young mobster Christopher Moltisanti on HBO’s The Sopranos – who felt “sometimes like a surrogate father,” he said.

“He’s just very down to earth, funny, obviously talented, just a really good guy to work with and be with. I felt very, very lucky to have him as my TV dad,” DiMarco said.

The first season won 10 Emmy Awards

The White Lotus was created by Mike White, who was also the showrunner behind HBO Clarification. White was a contestant on several seasons of reality TV shows Fantastic race and Survivor before he does Lotus.

“I notice a lot of similarities between Survivor and The White Lotus“, said DiMarco, observing that each series opens with a ship of strangers arriving on an unknown island.

“Both shows really dive into social play, social politics between people from different walks of life.”

As guests of The White Lotus intersect – an ensemble cast that includes Jennifer Coolidge, Aubrey Plaza, Will Sharpe, Haley Lu Richardson, Tom Hollander, Theo James and Meghann Fahy – they realize that a trip to paradise isn’t all it’s made out to be.

The first season, which won Best Limited Series (and nine other awards) at the 2022 Emmy Awards in September, was led by Connie Britton, Steve Zahn, Jake Lacy, Murray Bartlett, Alexandra Daddario and Sydney Sweeney.

Coolidge, the only original cast member to reprise her role in the second season, won Best Actress in a Limited Series.

“I just had a kind of epiphany”

DiMarco, who is from Oakville, Ont., was stuck in a depressive rut while studying life sciences at McMaster University. He turned to movies and TV shows in his spare time, and a light bulb went out.

“I just had kind of an epiphany one day. I was like, this sounds like a fun industry to work in,” DiMarco said. “I thought about being a writer, and then I thought, you know what, let me try acting first and see if I like it.”

The artist left school, moved alone to Vancouver and enrolled in acting classes. Eventually, he landed an audition for the second season of The White Lotusand binge-watched its first season to prepare.

If the show’s first season grappled with colonialism in Hawaii — creating tension between the station’s wealthy patrons, busy waiters, and native Hawaiians in a commentary on class, race and privilege — the second season is entirely devoted to sexual politics in Sicily.

But its larger-than-life characters — like Imperioli’s Hollywood bigwig, Coolidge’s childish socialite, Plaza’s self-righteous lawyer, or James’ smarmy tech-bro billionaire — don’t just make for good television.

“As tourist season approached, the hotel opened up to other people, so we would, essentially, see the real-life version of some of our characters walking into that hotel,” DiMarco said.

“Just like, oh, I think I’m playing this man…it made people watching really fun.”