Jake Lacy has defended his controversial White Lotus character Shane Patton, insisting he was “totally justified” in his complaints, five years after the show aired. The 40-year-old actor, now starring in the drama A Mosquito in the Ear, said he would return to the comedy drama in a heartbeat.
Shane's Justified Anger
Speaking exclusively to the Mirror, Lacy laughed: “I'm the wrong person to ask. Of course, he was in the right. They lied to him. He's paying $20,000 a night for a hotel room and they lied to him.” Lacy played Shane in the first season of the hit HBO series, which aired in 2021. Shane, a newlywed on honeymoon with Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), spent much of the trip obsessing over being given the wrong room, bugging manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) and involving his mother. The conflict ended when Shane accidentally stabbed Armond during a bizarre fight.
Lacy noted that creator Mike White had a different perspective: “Before we started filming, Mike and I met up in Hawaii, and I was like, ‘Yeah, he's an a*****e,’ and Mike said, ‘I think he's a good guy who's trying to have a nice time on vacation, and everybody keeps messing it up for him.’”
The Dichotomy of Shane
Lacy explained the complexity of Shane: “This is what’s so fun about that character, and what's so brilliant about Mike White – Shane is totally justified in his feelings, he's spending an obscene amount of money for a hotel room, you should get what you pay for. His behaviour and response to it is obnoxious, entitled, annoying, pathetic, petty, beta and all these things, so he gets to feel completely justified in the way he behaves, and we as viewers get to go, ‘I get why you feel that way, but you can't treat people like this. We're trying to have a society here.’”
He added: “That is the fun dichotomy of all these characters where you can see where they're coming from and also, you know, up to a certain point, depending on where your line is for how you conduct yourself in the world, can be like, ‘I would totally do that.’ And then at some point are like, ‘I would never do that,’ even though it's the same person.”
Memorable Boat Scene with Jennifer Coolidge
One of Shane’s most memorable scenes involved a boat trip with Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), who was scattering her mother’s ashes. Lacy praised Coolidge: “I adore her. She was not feeling well while we filmed that, and she was still so funny, she was unbelievable.” He credited White: “I've never read anything like it. I always want to absorb any attention from it and just pivot it towards Mike … we got to be in his sandbox, but he built this thing for everybody.”
New Role in A Mosquito in the Ear
Lacy is now starring in A Mosquito in the Ear, directed by Nicola Rinciari and based on a true story. The film follows an American couple travelling to India to adopt a young girl. Lacy admitted to “minor concerns” about playing Andrew: “I was concerned it would be treated as a white saviour story. On the page, Andrew could potentially come across as disinterested, that this is his wife's journey and he's willing to support her in that, but he's a little hesitant.” He added that Rinciari assured him it was not a white saviour story: “The whole point is that Sarvari has her own life, that it really costs all of them something for this family to coalesce – she's an equal participant in that choice.”
Career Shift from Good Guys to Villains
Reflecting on his career, Lacy said: “I spent the first 10 years of my career playing nice boyfriends. I played good guys and I was just completing other people's stories. For 60 years they had the manic pixie dream girl, and then slowly, thankfully, we made that character the lead, and it meant that that secondary relationship role became the stable, boring boyfriend. That's where I fit in for quite a while. Then I started playing people that you shouldn't be alone in a room with … It is nice to go back to that [character] where there isn’t an ulterior motive.”
A Mosquito in the Ear is screening at London Indian Film Festival on July 12.
