Parker Posey’s Southern accent on Season Three of “The White Lotus” has everyone in tears — including TODAY’s Craig Melvin.
Posey, who portrays Victoria Ratliff on the hit HBO show, pulled out her favorite phrases to say with her signature Southern twang on TODAY March 5, leading Craig to burst out into laughter mid-interview.
“It starts with the dialogue. There’s such funny words like, I love ‘tsunami!'” Posey said, in her exaggerated North Carolina accent, before also giving words like “Buddhism” a go.
Craig, a South Carolina native himself, couldn’t contain his laughter, and several crew members could be heard giggling off camera.
Posey says she fine-tuned her accent while working on movies like “Best in Show” with director Christopher Guest, which easily translated during lines like, “Piper, no!” when she’s talking to her daughter on “The White Lotus.”
“We just played on that, so it just started to grow and grow,” she said.
“I love Southern women characters … so being able to be this dramatic and funny is just so juicy and fun to do. And, of course, Mike White wrote it so (well),” Posey added.
She said she watched the Bravo reality TV show “Southern Charm” to prepare for the role, and her spin on a Durham, North Carolina, accent has taken over the internet.
“This is just — just a little bit of the feedback,” Craig said as he read social media posts on TODAY. “‘Parker Posey’s accent is, hands-down, one of the best parts of “White Lotus.”‘ ‘The voice that Parker Posey is doing in “White Lotus” belongs in the Louvre.'”
“They want to hang the accent!” he said.
Posey took the time to teach Craig a traditional Thai greeting that she learned while living in Thailand for seven months filming the third season of the show, before telling him about what it was like to read the script for Season Three for the first time.
“I was so hooked, and I was so taken by the eighth episode, I forgot who died,” she said, referring to the show’s finale episode. “It was so adrenalized and so stressed out that I forgot what happened.”
“Because the characters are so well written, too, and I really cared about them,” she added. “I don’t like all that violent stuff. I didn’t want anyone to die, but, it happens.”
While the Season Three finale isn’t until April 6, an exclusive clip from the show’s upcoming fourth episode aired on TODAY, which might provide some clues toward the show’s plot.
In the clip, Posey’s character, Victoria, is sitting with her husband, Tim, played by Jason Isaacs, and her daughter, Piper, played by Sarah Catherine Hook, looking at menus and discussing an event they just came from.
“Well, that was stressful,” Victoria says with a chuckle. “I thought I was going to have a grand mal seizure. What was that? That was — that was a convention for con men and tax cheats.”
Piper quips back: “I’m sure you all cheat on your taxes, Mom.”
“Well, not so badly that we have to leave the country,” Victoria replies.
The subtext, of course, is that Victoria’s husband does have some financial troubles: His business partner Kenny is being investigated by the feds for money laundering in Brunei, and Kenny is sure Tim is implicated too.
But the rest of the Ratliff family is unaware of the FBI’s warrant out to search Tim’s office, as Tim made the family secure their cellular devices in a bag so they can be as mindful and present as possible at the resort in Thailand.
The full fallout from the deal remains to be seen on the show, which is keeping fans on their toes ahead of the fourth episode, which airs Sunday, March 9.
One person who won’t be watching? Posey.
“I haven’t watched it — I lived it, and I loved it,” she told Craig. “We had a great time in Thailand.”
Posey said she doesn’t watch herself, but she plans to watch her season of “The White Lotus” once a little more time has passed.
“I’ll watch it in the summer, when there’s a little bit of a break,” she said.
