Jennifer Coolidge nearly turned down acclaimed 'White Lotus' role because she'd been 'gorging' on pizza and was convinced 'the virus was going to win'

• Coolidge told The Observer she was "self-destructing" during the pandemic.
• She almost turned down the role of Tanya on the HBO series.
• The actress was convinced "the virus was going to win."

The new HBO series "The White Lotus" is powered by fantastic performances by the likes of Alexandra Daddario, Connie Britton, Jake Lacy, and Jennifer Coolidge who revealed she nearly passed on the role.

The actress known best for starring in Christopher Guest movies like "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind" (also "Legally Blonde" and "American Pie") is gaining major praise for playing Tanya McQuoid in the dark satire following a group of vacationers.

Though show creator Mike White wrote the role of Tanya with Coolidge in mind, the actress admits she almost passed because she wasn't in the right head space when it was offered to her.

"I was really affected by the pandemic," Coolidge told The Guardian in a recent interview. "It was an incredibly sad time. I was reading tragic news stories on a daily basis, had a fatalistic approach and assumed the virus was going to win."

Coolidge said she knows people who have died due to COVID-19 and didn't care about acting. So when White approached her for the role and said to get on a plane to Hawaii, she admits it was "an impossibility."

"I'd been gorging and self-destructing at home for months, eating pizza all day," she said. "There was no way I wanted to be on film unless they shot me from the neck up. I'm sort of vain, so there was no f---ing way."

Coolidge said a 2 am text from White asking "are you afraid?" finally motivated her.

"It was like he could read my mind and sensed that I was trying to get out of it," she said.

Then after a good friend told her to "own [her] mess," Coolidge got on a plane for Hawaii and shot the show.

"It's such a great lesson in life," she continued. "I'd never have forgiven myself. I would've sat down to watch 'The White Lotus' and said: 'What the hell was I thinking? I'm an insane person.' A lot of us actors are so insecure and scared of failure, we blow our own chances."

The result is Coolidge receiving some of the best reviews of her career for her role as Tanya - a wealthy woman grieving the loss of her mother.

"Did I feel like I was nailing it on any level? No," Coolidge said of her performance. "Acting's so weird. You can never tell when you're in the midst of it. What helped is that my character, Tanya, had parallels to me personally. I'd been incredibly depressed during the pandemic. I lost my own mother at an early age. A family member passed away during Covid and we couldn't hold a proper memorial. So I had all that going for me."