If you’ve watched the new season, you may have questions about Theo James’ penis in The White Lotus season 2 and if he used a prosthetic or a body double for his now-viral nude scene.
The White Lotus is an anthology series that follows guests and employees at the fictional White Lotus resort chain. Season 1, which premiered in July 2021, was set in Hawaii, while season 2, which premiered in October 2022, was set in Sicily. In an interview with The New Yorker in July 2021, The White Lotus creator Mike White explained that the show was inspired by his own childhood and his family’s vacations to destinations like Hawaii. “When I was little, I would go to Hawaii with my family. My dad was a minister, so we didn’t have a lot of money. It was my first experience of being somewhere other than where I lived,” he said. “The Hawaiian culture is very specific, and there’s something very magnetic and beautiful about it. After I made Enlightened, I actually was able to buy a place there. I was hoping to be Paul Theroux and have my Hawaiian writer’s retreat or something. And it is such a paradisiacal, idyllic place.” He continued, “But it’s also such a living microcosm of so many of the cultural reckonings that are happening right now. There are ethical aspects to just vacationing there, let alone buying a house there. The longer I spent time there, the more I realized just how complex it is. And it just felt like that might be interesting as a backdrop to this show.”
Since its premiere, The White Lotus has been well-received by critics for its “sharp social satire” of The White Lotus chain’s predominantly white guests and their interactions with the resort’s staff. White told The New Yorker that the show’s characters are based on tourists he’s met while on vacation. He also revealed that season 1’s storyline about natives being displaced by corporations like the fictional White Lotus resorts is also based on what he’s seen first-hand in the state. “I have a place in Hanalei, and there’s all these tech bros. The tech world has found Hanalei. So there’s these huge houses—not my house—that are being sold for thirty million right on the beach. Mark Zuckerberg has a place there,” he said. “And I’d be, like, Ugh, those guys. They own the world! And then I was, like, I am that guy. The people who live there [in Hanalei] and have lived there their whole lives, they’re all being displaced.”
He continued, “And it’s a small enough place that you can kind of hold it all in your head in a way that you can’t in a place like L.A. It’s a complex place, and I didn’t feel like I could tell the story of the native Hawaiians and their struggles to fight some of their battles, but I felt like I could kind of come at it from the way I experienced it. At first, it’s, like, It’s so beautiful! I’m in touch with nature and it’s so healing. Then you realize it’s on the backs of people who’ve had a complicated history with people like me.”
As viewers know, The White Lotus doesn’t shy away from racy scenes. So was Theo James’ penis real in The White Lotus season 2? Read on for what James has said about his nude scene and how it’s the “toned” down version of the what he actually filmed naked.
Was Theo James’ penis real in The White Lotus season 2?
Image: Courtesy of HBO.
Was Theo James’ penis real in The White Lotus season 2? The answer is no. James confirmed in an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in December 2022 that he used a prosthetic penis for his nude The White Lotus season 2. “So, you go into these scenes, and you have a conversation with the director, and the producers, and they go, ‘OK, for this, we’re gonna use a prosthetic.’ ..and you say, ‘OK, that sounds good,’” James said. “I just wanted it not to be distracting. It needs to be ‘Regular Joe.’ Because the scene, you know, it’s not about the pee pee, it’s about power play and sex. It’s about whether he did it deliberately or whether it was an accident and what that means. She says, ‘I got you. Yeah, I got you. Regular Joe.’” James also revealed his reaction to seeing his prosthetic’s size. “I mean, it’s bigger than that. It’s like she stole it off a donkey in the field!” he said. ‘The thing is ginormous.”
James’ character, Cameron Babcock, is seen naked in episode one of The White Lotus season 2 when he undresses in front of Harper Spiller, a friend of Cameron’s wife Daphne, and his penis is visible in the mirror where Harper is looking. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight in October 2022, James confirmed he was “completely naked” when he filmed the episode one scene in The White Lotus season 2 aside from the prosthetic. “It is in my contract that I’m not allowed to do anything without being completely naked,” he joked. James—who has also been naked in other shows like HBO’s The Time Traveler’s Wife—also told Entertainment Tonight that his nude scene in The White Lotus “felt natural” due to experience stripping down for the camera. James also revealed that the final nude scene that made it on air was a much more “toned” down version of what he filmed. “The initial version we shot was way too much. So, we did a more subtle version,” he said. “They toned it [down].” He continued, “It’s funny ’cause we’re all kind of naked. It’s a holiday show, really.”
James also confirmed that episode five of The White Lotus season 2 reveals whether Cameron’s penis slip in front of Harper was “deliberate” or “accidental.” “It’s interesting, [because] at first… we don’t know whether it’s deliberate or [if] it’s accidental. But it reveals itself,” he said. “There’s a purpose to it…It’s never arbitrary.” Meghann Fahy, who plays Cameron’s wife Daphne, also told Entertainment Tonight: “It’s always character-driven. It’s always, you know, moving the [story] forward.” While James went nude in The White Lotus season 2, Steve Zahn, who played Mark Mossbacher in the first season, revealed that he used a prosthetic penis and a body double when his character was seen nude in season 1. “I remember when I got the script asking [creator] Mike [White] if I was going to have to do full frontal. And he’s like, ‘No, it’s going to be a prosthetic,’” Zahn told The Wrap in 2021. “I did have to approve the prosthetic that they used. He showed it to me first. And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’ll do.’” When asked if he wanted a larger prosthetic, Zahn told The Wrap: “No, I was like, ‘OK, great.’” Zahn also confirmed he wasn’t the actor who wore the prosthetic in the scene and that the fake penis was worn by a body double. “No, that was my body double,” he said. “I asked if I was going to have to wear it and Mike goes, ‘Well, it’s two hours in the makeup chair and we don’t see your face so we don’t need you to.’” He continued, “I come from the old school where we were actually naked when we were naked. I mean, my ass is in so many movies and shows it’s not even funny.”
As fans of The White Lotus know, the show doesn’t shy away from racy scenes. In an interview with Logo in 2021, Murray Bartlett, who played Armond in The White Lotus season 1, explained how a rimming scene between his character and co-star Lukas Gage’s character Dillon came to be. “This character was fully realized and complicated and had all these aspects that I don’t think needed explanation,” Bartlett said. “And so then it was just a matter of on set playing with that — playing with the different levels, playing with who this character was. Seeing what happened when it was fully expressed or bigger and what happened when we made it a bit more intimate. [We were] always trying to keep it grounded in something that felt real even when he was losing his shit or being very fully expressed.” Bartlett also confirmed the idea for the scene came from him and Gage, as well as creator Mike White’s insistence the actors “play on set.” “So, I didn’t have a lot of questions, and I feel like he didn’t really need to explain a lot of stuff,” he said. “We just played.” In an interview with AV Club, Gage revealed that the scene was originally a different sex scene before his and Bartlett’s suggestion that it involve rimming. “We said, ‘Wouldn’t it be more interesting if [Dillon’s] getting his salad tossed?’” he said. “I mean, how often do we see that on TV? I think it’s much more interesting and more jarring to walk in on.”
The White Lotus is available to stream on HBO Max. Here’s how to watch it for free.
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