Why The White Lotus Season 3 Recast Chloe With Charlotte Le Bon

Season 3 of HBO's acclaimed drama series "The White Lotus" came to a close in April 2025. Following the now-established tradition for the show, the main connective tissue to the previous seasons is the setting. The third season (which we called "reliably incisive, chaotic, and entertaining" in our review) takes place at one of the branches of the titular global luxury resort chain. Each subsequent season has brought a cast of mostly new characters — a few carefully-selected returning characters are in the mix to give audiences a little head start on what's about to unfold. Season 3 couple Gary (Jon Gries) and Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) represent both camps: Gary, formerly known as Greg, appeared in both Season 1 and Season 2, while Chloe is a brand new Season 3 addition.

Chloe seems mostly interested in enjoying the spoils that come with dating a rich and seemingly well-connected man, spending her days lying on the beach, riding on Gary's yacht, and delighting in being a bad influence on both friends and strangers alike. Chloe is expertly played by French-Canadian actor Charlotte Le Bon, previously best known to American audiences for her role in the 2015 Philippe Petit biopic "The Walk." Her performance in "The White Lotus" is so compelling that it's tough to imagine anyone else playing Chloe — but, in fact, someone else almost did. Thai actor Francesca Corney was originally cast as Chloe, and she actually spent about a month on set before Le Bon took over. So what happened? 

Nobody even knew that Francesca Corney had been cast as Chloe in Season 3 of "The White Lotus" until it was revealed that Charlotte Le Bon was taking over the role. That happened in March 2024, almost a year before Season 3 started airing. In fact, it all came out due to information from sources close to the production rather than official announcements made by HBO or anyone else. Those same sources claim that the direction Chloe was going in at that point required an actor who looked and played a bit older. Le Bon, who is around seven years older than Corney, certainly has a more mature look, so that seems to check out. Much is made about Chloe being French-Canadian (as Le Bon is) in the show, so it leaves viewers to wonder how Corney being Thai figured into Chloe's character in her original incarnation. 

Interestingly, photos from the set of "The White Lotus" that show Corney with the other cast members have been shared on various social media accounts (including the Instagram of actor Jason Isaacs, who plays Ratliff family patriarch Timothy), giving fans some fleeting glimpses of the Bangkok native as part of the ensemble instead of Le Bon. Losing the gig was no doubt a blow for the up-and-coming actor, who only has a couple of other roles under her belt to date. They include Netflix's supernatural action thriller film "Fistful of Vengeance" and a few episodes of Apple TV+'s middling period adaptation "The Buccaneers." She does, however, have several new projects in the works. The most notable of the bunch is Amazon's upcoming psychological thriller series "The Girlfriend," starring Robin Wright (who also directs) and Olivia Cooke.

With all due respect to Francesca Corney, who will hopefully go on to have a long and successful career, Charlotte Le Bon taking over as Chloe in "The White Lotus" Season 3 was probably for the best. Sometimes, actor replacements can ruin a show, but that certainly wasn't the case here, with Le Bon turning in a stellar performance as the ex-model. She quite literally made the role her own, with Chloe becoming a French-Canadian expat as opposed to a native Thai woman.

While the recasting does seem a bit like whitewashing on paper, Season 3 thankfully had several other Thai actors playing interesting characters, like Lalisa Manobal as the resort's health mentor Mook, Tayme Thapthimthong as security guard Gaitok, and Lek Patravadi (who has been called the Thai Judy Dench) as Sritala, one of the owners of the White Lotus. Patravadi actually came out of retirement for the role after Mike White, the show's creator, managed to arrange a meeting with her and sold her on the part.

As for Le Bon, she is not only a screen actor with dozens of films to her name, but she also does voice and dubbing work, including playing Joy — that is to say, Joie — in the French dubs of "Inside Out" and "Inside Out 2." She has also successfully branched out into writing and directing, with her 2022 coming-of-age drama film "Falcon Lake" scoring rave reviews. The movie was nominated for the Golden Camera award at Cannes and Le Bon won several awards at other festivals, including best first feature film at the Canadian Screen Awards.