The White Lotus's Aimee Lou Wood downplays Sex Education comparisons
The actor says hotel guest Chelsea is "quite different" to her star-making role.
The White Lotus actor Aimee Lou Wood has downplayed comparisons between her latest role and her star-making turn in Netflix coming-of-age drama Sex Education.
In the latest season of Mike White's satirical anthology, she plays fun-loving, optimistic hotel guest Chelsea, who is holidaying in Thailand with her much older boyfriend, Rick (Walton Goggins).
Previously, she played the bright, outgoing and artistic Aimee Gibbs in Sex Education, who was a loyal friend to Maeve (Emma Mackey) and a fan-favourite character across the show's four-season run.
However, in an interview with RadioTimes.com, Wood resisted the suggestion that Chelsea and Aimee were overly similar characters, countering that she actually views them as "quite different humans".
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"She's not like Aimee Gibbs, she's like Aimee Wood," she began. "It's so funny because obviously there’s a lot of me in Aimee because, as actors, you want to express yourself through a character."
Wood continued: "So the similarity is probably that Aimee is like me and Chelsea is also like me, they're just different parts of me – because I just like shedding. I like expressing parts of me through the characters that I'm given.
"I think they've got a similar optimism, but I actually think, at their core, they're quite different humans."
In a separate interview with RadioTimes.com and other press, Wood revealed that The White Lotus creator Mike White was not familiar with her work on Sex Education prior to her casting in the HBO series.
"What was really good is that Mike hadn't seen Sex Education," added Wood, "so he hadn't seen any of my work [on that show]... So it was all on the audition. I think that was good, actually.
"I didn't find it offensive or anything that he hadn't seen it. I felt very released by that, actually, because it allowed me to be on that set as, like... I just felt like Chelsea."
The actor explained: "She doesn't know why she's there. She doesn't know what The White Lotus resort is. And so, it was really helpful for me to just be like, 'OK, I can't know what The White Lotus, the show, is – I just have to be here and be present.'"
The White Lotus season 3 premieres on Sky Atlantic and NOW on Monday 17th February 2025.
Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Authors
David Craig is the Senior Drama Writer for Radio Times, covering the latest and greatest scripted drama and comedy across television and streaming. Previously, he worked at Starburst Magazine, presented The Winter King Podcast for ITVX and studied Journalism at the University of Sheffield.
