Jennifer Coolidge may be “envious as hell” that she’s not in “The White Lotus” Season 3, but she is more than happy her character Tanya at least doesn’t have to deal with Jon Gries‘ Greg.
Tanya and her husband Greg had a tumultuous marriage, leading to Greg seemingly hiring his former lover Quentin (Tom Hollander) to murder her. Tanya survived the kidnapping, but fell to her death while escaping. Now in Season 3, Gries’ Greg is back at the White Lotus resorts, this time with a new name (Gary) in Thailand. He also has a new girlfriend (Charlotte Le Bon) on his arm. Yet Greg/Gary isn’t the only returning “White Lotus” character: Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), who knew Greg from Season 1, definitely recognizes him…
And Coolidge can’t wait for chaos to ensue.
“Jon Gries has shown up,” Coolidge told Forbes. “I hope he gets it! I hope they do something terrible to him.”
She added of the season as a whole, “I just felt like everything he set up – it’s really eerie – you’re not quite sure what people are up to yet. My guess? Something’s going to go horribly wrong. I think it’s really going to go wrong.”
Coolidge won the Supporting Actress Emmy for both the first and second seasons of “The White Lotus.” While she is not in Season 3 (as of yet) due to her character being deceased, series creator Mike White teased in 2023 that he would be open to having a de-aged Coolidge reprise her role for a “White Lotus” prequel series.
“I absolutely think that’s possible, we were just talking about that,” White said when asked about a prequel. “It’s a funny idea. And making Jennifer, you know, 20 years younger, that would be fun too. I think Jennifer’s like, ‘Sure, let’s do it!’”
Meanwhile, Coolidge is believed to be returning to her other iconic past role as Paulette Bonafonté for a third “Legally Blonde” film. The long-awaited project was teased by lead star Reese Witherspoon, who told Entertainment Tonight in 2023 that “there is no ‘Legally Blonde 3’ without Jennifer Coolidge.” However, as of 2022, Coolidge publicly said she had yet to be contacted to reprise the role.
Witherspoon continued of Coolidge to ET, “I’m beyond myself about Jennifer Coolidge. She deserves every one of those flowers she is receiving right now. And she’s just one of those people who is so naturally gifted and funny and that you can just tell people love her, because she gets up there and everybody’s like, ‘I love her,’ but she’s just done a lot of good work in our business for so long, that it’s really nice to see her getting this incredible moment.”
