Alexandra Daddario Teases What Her White Lotus Character May Be Up to If She Returned (Exclusive)

What would life look like for Rachel Patton if she checked in to The White Lotus again? 

Alexandra Daddario, who played the character on season 1 of HBO’s Emmy-winning black comedy-drama, has some thoughts.

While speaking with PEOPLE about her new LGBTQ+ coming of age movie I Wish You All the Best, Daddario, 39, says she believes Rachel, a young freelance writer, has likely remained married to her wealthy and entitled husband Shane (Jake Lacy). 

“In my mind she stayed with him. And what does that look like four years down the road? And did they have kids? There’s a lot of directions that could go in,” continues Daddario.

“I do think about her as a character, and it makes me sad to think that she’s still out there in the creative ether with him,” she says.

Ultimately, though, she’d defer to creator Mike White: “I would be very curious to see what he thinks she’s up to.”

Season 1, which was set at the titular fictional resort’s Maui, Hawaii, location, featured Rachel and Shane on a tense honeymoon as the new Mrs. Patton questioned whether she really wanted to remain married to him. At the end of the six-episode season she decided to stay with Shane, who had killed hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) after he snuck into their room.

As for an ideal resort setting for Rachel to return? “There’s a lot of places in the world I want to go that I haven’t been, but I would be more interested in what this story was,” says Daddario, who notes, “Portugal’s very in right now.”

A handful of characters from season 1, including Emmy winner Jennifer Coolidge’s eccentric Tanya McQuoid, Natasha Rothwell’s spa employee Belinda Lindsey, and Jon Gries’s mysterious Greg Hunt, have returned for subsequent installments.

But Daddario admits she hasn’t had the time to check out the most recent season — set in Thailand and starring Parker Posey, Michelle Monaghan, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Jason Isaacs — which aired earlier this year.

“I have not turned the television on since the birth of my child,” says Daddario, who welcomed a baby with her husband, producer Andrew Form, in 2024.

“I swear to God, no, it’s horrible, because I have friends who have produced projects and I haven’t seen a gosh darn thing. It’s awful,” continues Daddario, whose performance in The White Lotus earned her an Emmy nomination. “He comes and saunters up, and I don’t want him sitting and watching White Lotus.”

In her new movie I Wish You All the Best, Daddario plays a North Carolina woman who takes in her nonbinary sibling (Corey Fogelmanis) after they’re kicked out of the house by their unaccepting parents. Daddario calls the film an “important story.”