Jennifer Coolidge said she almost turned down her 'White Lotus' role because of 'self-hate'

• Jennifer Coolidge said she almost turned down playing Tanya McQuoid in "The White Lotus."
• The actress opened up about her worries at The Hollywood Reporter's Drama Actress Roundtable.

Jennifer Coolidge said she almost turned down her role as Tanya McQuoid in "The White Lotus" because of "self-hate and not being prepared."

Speaking at The Hollywood Reporter's Drama Actress Roundtable, the 61-year-old actress opened up about her initial doubts and her mental state when "The White Lotus" creator Mike White first approached her.

"We were in COVID, no one knew I'd be getting a call going, 'Hey Jennifer, my show got greenlit, let's go do it. And it's all going to be on a beach in bathing suits!'" Coolidge said at the roundtable.

It was the height of the pandemic by then, and she'd been stress-eating to cope with what was going on in the world, Coolidge added.

"We were like six months into COVID, and I'd been locked up in my house in New Orleans just pigging out on these vegan pizzas. A good friend and I were doing two at breakfast, two at lunch, and two at dinner," she said. "So, I was just like, 'No, I'm not doing this,' but I didn't tell Mike I wasn't doing it. I just said, 'Oh, that's so nice, Mike. God, congratulations.'"

The actress admitted that the pandemic impacted the way she viewed life: Instead of taking care of herself, she adopted a "do whatever you want" type of mindset.

"I thought we were all going to die during COVID," Coolidge said. "Just do whatever you want. Walk around naked, get arrested, whatever, it's all going to be over."

Even when discussions about the role started to get more serious on the business front, Coolidge said that she "still wasn't going to do it" until her best friend called her out on her "bullcrap."

"She knew exactly what I was doing, and she was like, 'You are an idiot. I'm not going to let you do this,'" Coolidge said.

"I think this happens to actresses a lot," Coolidge added. "You sit around and bitch your whole life that you've never been given the role of your dreams, and then when it comes, you're like, 'Yeah, I can't do it. I ate a bunch of pizza.' You can ruin it."

Other actresses present at the roundtable included Emma D'Arcy, Melanie Lynskey, Dominique Fishback, Claire Danes, and Jennifer Garner. Garner chimed in saying that she'd be scared of putting on a bathing suit as well.

"Yeah, and look, they have Sydney Sweeney and Alexandra Daddario to wear those bathing suits, I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know, it was self-hate and not being prepared," Coolidge added.

Apart from discussing the roles they played, the actresses also shared their struggles of having a public life as well as the kind of characters that they'd like to play in the future.

This is not the first time that Coolidge has talked about how her self-image during the pandemic impacted the way she felt about playing Tanya McQuoid.

Coolidge previously told People Magazine in November 2021 that she wanted to "look a certain way" on film, but her pandemic weight gain led her to think twice about the role.

In a different interview with Variety in 2022, Coolidge admitted she "didn't like the way she looked" at that point in time.

"But did I change it for 'The White Lotus' 2? No! I didn't change anything!" the actress added.