The White Lotus' Leo Woodall Thinks Jack Might 'Go on a Rampage' After the Season 2 Finale

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of The White Lotus, "Arrivederci." Read at your own risk!]

Jack, the Essex lad played with charm and smarm by Leo Woodall, was a late addition to the sprawling cast of characters that populatedThe White Lotus' hellish slice of Sicily, but his impact on the final hour of Season 2 was undeniable. His body was definitively not among the corpses teased in the premiere, though it might have just been a case of "right place, right time" that he was able to end the season with his life intact. Because Jack's role in the attempt on Tanya's (Jennifer Coolidge) life orchestrated by her husband Greg (Jon Gries) mostly involved distracting her assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), he was absent from the big gay mess-turned-massacre happening on his supposed uncle Quentin's (Tom Hollander) yacht.

But before that tragicomic conclusion in the bay outside the White Lotus, the cracks in Jack's easygoing demeanor began to show as Portia wised up, he became increasingly menacing as he took Portia's phone and drove her back to the hotel under duress. In the end, he dropped her off near the airport, warning her to leave for good with her own life intact before speeding off into the night. Elsewhere, unbeknownst to either of them, Tanya, Quentin, and the rest of the men on the yacht lay dead, still hours away from being discovered.

Woodall caught up with TV Guide post-finale to discuss why he thinks this is all good set-up for Jack to exact his revenge, filming those final scenes with Richardson, and the meaning behind Jack's ridiculous tattoos.

Everything We Know So Far About The White Lotus Season 3

How does it feel to have survived The White Lotus? Not everyone can say that.
Leo Woodall: I know, it's actually quite a feat, isn't it? It's quite an achievement. It feels good, my blood's pumping.

What kinds of conversations did you and Mike White have about Jack's ending?
Woodall: There weren't loads of conversations about it. But I love that he lets [Portia] go. In my mind, his job was to, at the right time, take her out. I love that by the end, there is a little crack when some light shines through and actually he does the right thing. I think that's what Mike White's intention was as well. He's actually a sweet boy, he's just misunderstood.

I think he grew a soft spot for [Portia]. I'm not gonna go as far to say that he fell in love with her, but I think he didn't want to see anything bad happen to her. I think that's why he says he hopes he never sees her again, because he likes her. He knows that with him, he causes trouble, and by the end, he actually doesn't want to see her caught up in this catastrophic mess.

Jack and Portia are by themselves for most of the finale, the whole vibe is unsettling. How did you and Haley figure out how to set that tone?
Woodall: It wasn't obvious, but we kind of just replayed what we knew was already on the page and what Mike had kind of informed us with. I thought she did such a good job of letting that discomfort really start to unsettle her stomach, and he's just trying to continue to distract, and it's not really working anymore. The game is up, and he knows that he has to make a choice. One choice is to kind of betray someone that he feels he owes a lot to, or the other choice is to do what he knows is actually the right thing. 

I loved Jack's reaction to Portia asking him if he f--ks his uncle, and that line where he tells her to let him do is job is so menacing. Can you tell me about shooting that moment in the car?
Woodall: I remember, I tried something — she goes on a bit of a spiel, she's asking lots of questions, and I kind of just slapped my hand on the wheel, I shouted a big expletive or something. In my mind, it was gonna be a pin-drop moment, and really break all the noise, and it would be silent and scary. And Haley just started laughing. I told Mike that I was going to do it, but not to tell Haley because it was on her coverage, it would've been her reaction that you get. But she just wasn't expecting it and it was such a bold move, she just started laughing and it didn't work out. But the rest of it was not funny. I was trying to scare her, and she was finally kind of getting the truth out of him. Standing up to him, in a way. I liked doing it, letting the dark side of him come out a bit, same with the final scene.

What was that final scene like to film, with all those emotions happening between the two of them?
Woodall: I really enjoyed that. I smoked about 40 cigarettes.

Were they real cigarettes? They have fake ones, right?
Woodall: They have fake ones. I think I smoked a couple of real ones… no, I'm not gonna lie, I think, actually, most of them were real. It surprised me that I didn't get sick. But it was a really airy scene. It was dark and it was late. It kind of fell into place quite quickly. So we got to play around with it a little bit. I enjoyed playing that moment where it's not a front anymore — not that the other stuff is a front but he's not lying to her anymore, and he's not doing his job. He's doing the opposite.

Shows Like The White Lotus to Watch If You Like The White Lotus

I thought that "powerful people" line sort of described what was going on with Ethan, Harper, Cam, and Daphne, too. It's a different kind of power, but there's still a messy power situation happening there. Do you have any thoughts on how Mike wove all these disparate stories together?
Woodall: Probably just that he's a genius, and everything he does is subtle and brilliant. And there are things that people have missed about Season 2, little moments. I've heard some people saw the picture of Greg [in Episode 6] and didn't know that it was him.

I didn't know! I didn't realize at first.
Woodall: Oh, man! To be fair, I think it was supposed to be a little bit ominous anyway. I don't throw any judgment if you didn't realize it was Greg. Yeah, there are little gems in there, little cookies. There are so many things I love about Lotus, but one of them is how he does weave some storylines together that you don't expect to be linked.

Mike has said that he wanted to make this season about relationships because he focused on class so heavily in Season 1, but there are still aspects of class differences here. Jack has that line in Episode 6 about being in a deep hole, for example. Do you have any thoughts about what was going on with him to get him in this position with Quentin in the first place?
Woodall: Yeah, there wasn't a specific backstory laid out, but I always imagined that Jack was in this sort of dark place and not doing well. Quentin comes along and takes a liking to Jack, and a kind of transactional relationship does begin, but there is also some care there, I think. Jack definitely does care about Quentin. Whether Quentin cares about Jack, that's a question for Mr. Hollander. I think sometimes about what Jack's reaction would be when he finds out that Quentin has died. I think he'd be pretty pissed off, wouldn't he? Really quite upset. Maybe he'd go on a rampage. Who knows? It's out in the universe now.

I also have to ask about Jack's tattoos — I noticed the one on his neck that said "cowabunga." Is there any significance to those? Did you have any input on them?
Woodall: I had quite a bit, actually. Mike and I had a conversation about the tattoos, and he knew that he wanted something on the neck. I went and found some stuff, I found "cowabunga" with a lot of other ones. He loved "cowabunga." It's Bart Simpson, it's one of his things. Did you work out what all the tattoos were?

I don't think I paused to take enough of them in. What were some of the others?
Woodall: There were the Roman numerals. The Roman numerals were "666." There was a really lame one across the ribs, which was, "Live fast, die young." It was my mate's idea. There was a bird — it was supposed to go in the other direction, but when we first did it, it was flying downward, but I liked it because it was such a gross thing for him to get, a bird flying towards his nether regions. And then my MVP was the "Wendy" on his bum.

The internet was truly going crazy with fan theories this season. I'm wondering if any of them made their way to you, or if you had any favorites that you heard.
Woodall: Yeah, I heard that Daphne was going to kill Cameron. I heard that Albie was going to kill Lucia, which I thought would be really dark. Plus, we love Lucia! It would be so evil, because he's the nice guy. He'd been driven to such insanity that he killed Lucia, which would be a sad moment.

The White Lotus Watch on HBO Max