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Parker Posey is feeling grateful for her role in The White Lotus!
On Monday, June 2, the actress, 56, was honored with the Legend Tribute at the 2025 Gotham TV Awards, held at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. In her acceptance speech, she thanked the fans of the hit HBO show for carrying on the character’s legacy — specifically, her southern drawl when she says “Piper, no!”
“You know what this award says to me, which makes me so happy?” Posey said in her acceptance speech. “To those out there on the internet world who made things on YouTube, who put things on social media, who imitated me, who had fun in the backyard, who made art, whether it was good or bad, they entertained each other and themselves.
The actress added, “Thank you, Mike White, for writing this character for me, for believing in a middle aged woman, and believing in a legend.”
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She concluded her speech with a call to action, telling audience members, “Let’s keep the arts alive! Let’s turn this business into entertainment that everyone can love, that old people, and young people, and even babies laugh at.”
Posey played Victoria Ratliff, a wealthy North Carolina wife and mother of three in The White Lotus.
Her southern drawl and uniquely humorous line delivery earned her virality amid a legion of new fans online, who often shared videos lip synching or imitating her notable lines from the show’s third season.
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Following her Legend Tribute win, Posey is set to star in Wild Horse Nine opposite The White Lotus co-star Sam Rockwell.
“I just, I love him. I remember the first time I saw Sam Rockwell smoking in a theater by a telephone booth,” Posey exclusively told PEOPLE at the Gotham TV Awards.
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“You can’t do that anymore and there are no telephone booths anymore in a theater, you know, and he was auditioning for something and he’s looking at his lines, so I have known him for a long, long time,” she said.
