‘White Lotus’ Star Haley Lu Richardson’s Message to Portia Haters: ‘Go to Therapy’

variety.com:

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor In Jennifer Coolidge’s Variety Actors on Actors conversation with Jeremy Allen White, she proposes that Tanya return to “The White Lotus” as a seagull, so she can poke out the eyes of her evil husband Greg (Jon Gries).

Haley Lu Richardson, who played Tanya’s assistant, Portia, weighs in on killing off Greg during this week’s “Just for Variety” podcast. “Jon and I worked together in the first movie I ever did — when I was 17 — called ‘The Last Survivors,’” she recalls, adding, “I was the hero and he was the villain.

I killed him at the end of the movie with a samurai sword.” She says she’d like to re-create that moment in Season 3 of “The White Lotus,” which takes place in Thailand. “Portia is somewhere in Asia with a samurai sword and kills Greg,” she says, laughing.

Until “White Lotus,” Richardson was most known for her breakout performance in the 2017 indie drama, “Columbus,” followed by “Support the Girls,” “Unpregnant” and “After Yang.” The “White Lotus” spotlight took some getting used to, especially when Portia was being criticized. “I just hadn’t been in that situation before, so I did get sad,” Richardson says. “There was probably the first couple of episodes where I was seeing some things and reactions to things with Portia and me that I was taking personally or I wasn’t fully sure how to take it or how to process it.” She eventually came to realize that it was a good thing people were talking about the show in such detail.