"A big clue was the running": When The White Lotus star Will Sharpe addressed his enigmatic role in the HBO drama

Mike White's The White Lotus Season 2 marked actor Will Sharpe's first acting project in three years after his BAFTA-winning performance in Giri/Haji in 2019. Primarily a director and writer, Sharpe had enjoyed his time in the director's chair for three years before playing Ethan in HBO Max's anthology series.

Will Sharpe's Ethan was unlike other characters on the show, and his mild-mannered charms and constant struggles to fit in with his rich and privileged friend, Cameron, added an interesting dynamic in the show's second season. As Ethan and his wife Harper got entangled in the luxurious and debauched world of their fellow couple, Cameron and Daphne, they realized problems in their own marriage.

The White Lotus certainly opened gates to many acting opportunities for Will Sharpe, who recently starred in Netflix's romantic comedy series Too Much opposite Megan Stalter. In addition, he is also set to star in Apple TV+'s upcoming rom-com series Prodigies opposite Ayo Edebiri, and Joe Barton's television miniseries Amadeus, where he will play the role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

More on this in our story.

When Will Sharpe addressed his complicated character in The White Lotus

Will Sharpe's Ethan is introduced in sharp contrast to his meddling alpha-male college roommate Cameron, who invited his tech-genius friend to the luxurious Italian resort with their respective wives. While the one-week vacation was meant to mark their thriving friendship, which had managed to survive the test of time, it eventually turned into Ethan's introduction to white privilege and an examination of his flawed marriage to his wife, Harper.

While Ethan had many quirks, one of his most eccentric habits (highlighted throughout The White Lotus Season 2) was jogging. When most people would break free of their regular and monotonous life on vacation, Ethan desperately clung to this particular normality, which had a deeper meaning in the show's narrative than you might think.

In an interview with Los Angeles Times, Will Sharpe addressed Ethan's need to jog even while on vacation in The White Lotus Season 2:

“It felt like a big clue was the running.''

He added:

“There was something about that that felt important to the character — I guess the discipline and that he’s somebody who’s trying to keep a regularity to his life. Even if, internally, there’s actually absolute chaos, he’s trying to keep this level of control.”

As Mike White's anthology series progressed, we learned more information about Ethan and Harper's marriage, including the seemingly shocking detail that the couple does not sleep together anymore. While Will Sharpe felt that this particular detail about Ethan and Harper's marriage was "sad," White called it "really normal."

However, after tiptoeing on his buddy's womanizing ways and rejecting the invitation to sleep with some s*x workers, Ethan and Harper finally take a piece of Cameron and Daphne's 'perfect' marriage home, in true The White Lotus fashion.

Will Sharpe on returning to acting in The White Lotus

Unlike many of his seasoned co-stars in The White Lotus, Will Sharpe is not principally an actor, and the HBO Max project marked his first stint in acting after 2019's Giri/Haji, which also won him a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor.

For three years before debuting as Ethan in White's anthology series, Will Sharpe sat in the director's chair, where he directed the 2021 biographical comedy film The Electrical Life of Louis Wain and Sky Atlantic's true crime miniseries Landscapers. Discussing his return as Ethan, Sharpe added to the Los Angeles Times:

“I definitely was aware of the oddness of suddenly being a part of the show. But I had missed it... Watching brilliant actors like David Thewlis and Olivia Colman [in Landscapers] - watching them have such a good time - that was very gratifying to me as a director but also really made me miss that process and the thrill of that.”

All seasons of The White Lotus are now streaming on HBO Max.

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