Jason Isaacs‘ keep at The White Lotus is over, however the drama between Duke College and the HBO present nonetheless lingers.
Within the sixth episode, when Isaacs’ character Timothy Ratliff contemplates suicide with a gun, he’s carrying a T-shirt along with his alma mater, Duke’s emblem on it. The College wasn’t happy with the publicity and its vice chairman for communications, Frank Tremble, shared an announcement to the New York Instances to sentence it. “The White Lotus not solely makes use of our model with out permission, however in our view makes use of it on imagery that’s troubling, doesn’t replicate our values or who we’re and easily goes too far.”
Regardless of the controversy, a couple of weeks later, on the finale screening for the sequence, Isaacs wore one other Duke T-shirt, however this time with the varsity’s Blue Satan mascot on it. Throughout a current look on the Status Junkie podcast, Isaacs admits he purchased the shirt after his flight was canceled and had no different garments. “I discovered the entire thing faintly amusing,” he stated concerning the feud.
“I don’t like anybody getting upset about something, however clearly, it was simply somebody fancying seeing their identify on-line and, in some division, desirous to go viral,” Isaacs continued. “Their real-life alumni are such a rogue’s gallery, a lot of them, that the notion that this slightly spiritually enlightened character on tv brought on them any hassle is fanciful and ridiculous.”
Whereas some college students have been additionally upset with using their college’s emblem, Alex Berkman, a Duke sophomore, informed THR, “To me, it’s by no means that critical. It’s tv — it’s actually high-quality tv.”