The White Lotus star reflects on her life in TV, including the local ad reference that doesn’t work in Australia, and her bananas co-star on Neighbours.

Morgana O’Reilly was scrolling her phone next to her sleeping son on an idle Saturday morning when she got the call confirming that she would be joining the cast of the critically-acclaimed HBO black comedy The White Lotus. “I picked up the phone and ran out of the room, preparing for some small talk and to find out that it didn’t go my way,” she recalls. “But then my agent just said ‘I’ve just talked to casting, and they’re going to offer you the role. It’s yours.” 

Her immediate reaction – “are you sure?” – was followed by weeks of suspicion that the whole thing might be an elaborate ruse. “I really thought it was a scam for a while there,” she laughs. “It happened once in the Philippines – they hired all these mid-level actors and crew and things, but then they all turned up and the whole thing was fake.” But as she began receiving password-protected scripts from official HBO email addresses, it all became very real. 

In season three of The White Lotus, coming to Neon this Monday, February 17, O’Reilly plays Pam, a “health butler” at the Thai luxury resort. “She helps coordinate the wellness program but I reckon, underneath it, she’s barely holding on,” laughs O’Reilly. “In my head, she often disappears to Bangkok a couple of times a year and nobody hears from her, and then she decides to pull herself together and go back to the wellness world.”

While she couldn’t say too much more about what’s to come in the highly-anticipated season, O’Reilly says it was a career highlight to appear on the show that provides such a “feast” for audiences. “There are so many quirks and turns, it was such a joy,” she says. “It’s one of those shows where you always ask people ‘have you seen White Lotus’ and if they say ‘no’ you just feel so jealous that they still get to watch it all for the very first time.” 

While we wait for The White Lotus to open its ornate doors, O’Reilly took us through her life in television, including her favourite drink driving ad and a banana-based Neighbours challenge. 

My earliest TV memory is… Watching Play School. I remember loving that. I actually remember our house got burgled and our TV was stolen. Now I know what it’s like to pick up one of those old fucking TVs – they’re so goddamn heavy – I don’t know how anyone managed that. Anyway, I remember mostly being really upset I wouldn’t be able to watch Play School.

A TV moment that haunts me is… The first thing that comes to mind is the first time that I did fast turnaround television. I did a tiny role on Nothing Trivial, and it was a big learning curve, because it turns out fast turnaround television is really fucking fast. When you’re a guest character, especially if you’re filming in one location, they’ll shoot all of your scenes really fast, back-to-back on one day, and there’s lots of people that come in and touch you between each take – makeup, costume, hair. And I felt like I needed to give every single person a little piece of myself and it completely rinsed me to the core. I was dead. 

The New Zealand TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… I reckon it is the Crunchy Nut cornflakes one – “I’m coming down… I’m coming down too”. I feel like I always quote that one. I also noticed when I was living in Australia, that I would always quote the old drunk driving ad “it was the same day, David.” Nobody ever got it. 

My TV guilty pleasure is… To be honest, I think my guilty pleasure at the moment, considering the fact that I work in TV, I make TV, and I’m supposed to be all over TV, is going to bed with a book. I’m really enjoying reading again, because when you’ve got small children it’s really hard to read at night because you never know what you’re signing up for that night. But recently I have rediscovered books, and it is such a joy.

My favourite TV show of all time is… I’m ready to rewatch Fleabag. I know it’s kind of trite, because it was such a success, but I fucking loved that show. I loved Master of None. I loved the first season of Fargo, fuck that was so cool. We’re about to watch the last episode of Ripley and that has been just incredible. I mean, After the Party, come on. 

My favorite TV project I’ve worked on is… Friends Like Her really meant a lot to me. That character and that world that really got under my skin and was a hard one to shake, so I feel like that was a very special one. Even being on Neighbours was awesome. I had such a fun time with that character and, for a while there, I just tried to get a banana in as many scenes as I could. There was a real freedom to play with on that show. 

My dream TV project is… I would have loved to have been a part of Broad City. It was one of those shows that I watched and it was almost too hard to watch because I just wanted to be part of the creative team behind it so much and loved it so much. That, or Pen15.

My most controversial TV opinion is… My pet peeve is watching TV and you can see the script, you can see the words on the page. Why wouldn’t you either give an actor the freedom to make it sound like it’s coming out of a person, or just write it better? 

The very last thing I watched on television was… We are down to the last episode of Ripley. It’s been a very slow burn for us, but it’s been amazing and so beautiful. It’s wonderful watching Italy portrayed not as a super lush, bright, sunny, White Lotus vibe, but seeing it as this noir, dark, sexy place. And then the writing and the storylining is smarter than me, and that’s what I really want from a TV series when I watch it. 

The White Lotus S3 comes to Neon Monday 17 February.