Production on Season 4 of The White Lotus has moved to Cannes, where cast and crew have taken over the Palais des Festivals for what appear to be some of the season's most dramatic sequences.
According to Variety, filming at the iconic venue began Monday, a day after the 79th Cannes Film Festival wrapped. The production has been shooting through Thursday, with cameras running into the early morning hours. The season is set against the backdrop of the Cannes Film Festival and follows two rival film teams competing at the festival, with each group staying at a different White Lotus property.
Laura Dern was spotted Tuesday on the famous Palais steps, wearing a long strapless black gown with pink feathers. Dern, who took over the role from Helena Bonham Carter, is believed to play a washed-out star chasing a comeback. She was filming a tense scene in which her character storms out of a screening visibly furious.
On Wednesday, a different group of cast members descended on the Palais. Ari Graynor, Steve Coogan, Max Greenfield, and Kumail Nanjiani were seen exiting the theater while filming what sources describe as a fight sequence. The scenes appear to be set during the festival's closing night.
Producer David Bernad described the season earlier this year as a satire on the film industry, one that charts "the ups and downs of the festival and the pain of being here and the love and excitement of being here." If the closing-night setting holds for the finale, the scenes shot this week could rank among the most pivotal of the season.
As in earlier seasons set in Hawaii, Sicily, and Thailand, the new season will involve cultural friction between demanding American guests and local staff, along with romantic entanglements between guests and workers, according to sources.
After the Cannes shoot wraps, production will move to Paris in June for interior filming at the Lutetia Hotel, a landmark built in 1910. The crew is expected to return to the South of France later in the year. The season carries a reported budget of around $120 million, making it the most ambitious production ever to use the festival as its central setting.