She shot to fame playing Aimee Gibbs on Sex Education in 2019 – for which she earned herself a well-deserved BAFTA – and, since then, Aimee Lou Wood has gone from strength to strength, excelling in films, TV shows and onstage.
The 31-year-old actress has displayed her drama chops as Tracey Taylor in Toxic Town, proved her musical prowess as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and, most recently, blown fans away as fun-loving Chelsea in the latest series of The White Lotus. Despite sharing the screen with some acting legends, Aimee holds her own and has received endless praise for her performance – and for keeping her natural gnashers in a world full of veneers.
Aimee – who is currently filming series two of the BBC’s Daddy Issues – chats to heat about her sex scenes with Walton Goggins, why filming The White Lotus felt ‘claustrophobic,’ and how she relates to Chelsea…
The White Lotus is such a massive phenomenon – were you a fan of first two seasons?
I loved them, I was a proper fan. This is the first time I’ve ever been in something that I’ve been a fan of beforehand, which was a weird feeling. I was always like, ‘I want to be in it, but I feel like I don’t fit into that world at all.’ Then I got my audition for Chelsea, and it felt quite cosmic.
How did you find out you got the part?
I’d done my callback, and they told me it might be a little while before they know, because they were seeing other people. Then the next day, I was out with my friends, and when I went to the loo I checked my phone and it came up, ‘Mike White [the writer and director] can’t wait to work with you’, and all these missed calls. I was like, ‘Oh my God. I’m actually going to be in The White Lotus.’ It was the maddest experience.
How did your friends feel when you told them?
Everyone was pretty excited. It’s probably the most excited they’ve been about a part, because everyone’s seen the show. My best friend bought me a bucket hat that said, ‘These gays are trying to murder me’, because we’re that obsessed with Jennifer [Coolidge] in the show.
Did anyone from previous series give you any tips when you landed the part?
I know Leo [Woodall] from season two, and that was really helpful, because he knew what the experience was like. He was checking in every now and then while I was in Thailand, asking how I was doing. I think the fourth time he checked in I was like, ‘I’m not OK!’ and he was so good at giving me some perspective. It was also amazing having Natasha [Rothwell, who plays Belinda] there, because she’d experienced it before, so that felt very anchoring.
How did you find the filming process?
It was seven months, and it was amazing. And hard. There was a lot of homesickness. There was a lot of loss of self, of, ‘Who am I ,again?’ Because you just don’t have your anchor points. But the connections that I made were so deep and so special. And I got to see things that I never ever thought I would see. But it got to a point where I was like, ‘I need to go home.’
Was it intense living with the rest of the cast?
We were all staying in the hotels we were filming at, so it is a social experiment. It’s quite claustrophobic. There’s no separation between set and home. We were a very dysfunctional, lovely family. We grew so close, because we had to create home within each other. I don’t think I’ll ever have an experience like that again. Usually if you’re filming away, you get a car back to your own space and there was none of that. It was, ‘That’s a wrap,’ walk five steps, and I’m back in my hotel room, and I can still see the crew outside. It is The Truman Show. It is Big Brother. It’s full-on. All I kept thinking the whole way through was, ‘I feel like Jim Carrey’.
Your character, Chelsea, is seen as a little bit ditzy, but actually has some very wise moments…
She’s so underestimated. If you listen to what she’s saying, she is so profound. She’s not about ego or optics – she’s about experience. It makes her very honest, because she just wants to have adventures, and she doesn’t really care about success in a conventional way or how she’s perceived. She just wants love, and I think that’s very honest. Even though she might get it wrong sometimes, I admire someone who lives in that way.
Do you see a lot of yourself in Chelsea?
I relate to Chelsea a lot, I think we’re very similar. She’s got this incredible intuition, and I think I have that. But what Chelsea and I also have is, even though she’s so intuitive, she can be absolutely oblivious to huge red flags. All of a sudden, her intuition is out the window, so I think that we’re quite similar in that way. Chelsea’s got a really good heart, but she could definitely do with some therapy. It’s so fun playing a version of me that maybe never went to therapy.
And Walton Goggins plays your boyfriend, Rich – were you a fan of his?
He’s amazing. Before filming began, I was on the phone to Dave [Bernad], the producer, and I was like, ‘I need to know who Rick is,’ and he told me, ‘It’s Walton Goggins.’ I just thought, ‘This is going to be so fun.’ And it was, it was such an adventure. Every day, he’s so carpe diem, and he’s such an amazing actor. All the scenes with Rick and Chelsea across the table from each other were my favourite, because those scenes in The White Lotus – the dinners where it’s tense and the dialogue’s so good – it’s all about subtext. Getting to do those scenes was a dream come true.
Rick and Chelsea have a pretty dysfunctional relationship…
Chelsea’s so constantly in the in the mindset that it’s all about him and his comfort that she doesn’t remember to think about herself. There are points where it’s like, ‘Chelsea, please calm down. Stop mothering.’ I think it’s very relatable. Lots of people end up in relationships where they’re being a girlfriend, mum, the whole lot.
You’ve done racy scenes before in Sex Education, and The White Lotus was no exception – how do you find filming those scenes?
I’m only just fully processing all of those bits that I did in season one of Sex Ed and thinking, ‘How did I do that?’ I feel like I’ve gotten a bit more fearful ,somehow. But there are intimacy coordinators and Mike [White] was very much like, ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.’ I was more nervous about bikinis than sex scenes, because I feel like that’s when you’re thinking more about how you look, whereas in an intimate scene, it’s about just that. That was the bit that I struggled with the most. You just have to forget that and let it go, but that was way scarier to me.
White Lotus is known for its subversive approach to sex and relationships, what is it about these themes that drew you to the project?
It’s so fun. You’ve got things that might be toxic on paper, but you can’t judge it. You cannot judge it when you’re playing these parts. You have to be on their side. My character’s relationship with Rick is dysfunctional, but it was quite freeing to go, ‘I don’t have to put any judgement on it.’ From Chelsea’s point of view, she’s in love, and I just have to go for it. That’s why Mike is such a gift, because he’s so close to the bone with the way that he observes humans and just gets it so right. A lot of the time humans are really not great. As an actor, you get to just play that character’s point of view and not really think of moral things.
This series plays with themes of mindfulness and spirituality — how would you fare on a digital detox?
I think I would do scarily well. If I could never reply to anything ever again I would. But that’s risky for me, I have to have some kind of contact and connection to the real world.
How did you end up using your real voice for the character of Chelsea – did she ever have an American accent?
It’s so funny how words get twisted, because now people think I can’t do an American accent. I can do an American accent, but Mike wanted my Manchester one. I did one tape in American and one tape in my own, and he said, ‘Let’s do Manchester.’ And it works. I don’t think I look very American at all. It’s the teeth!
Is the White Lotus group chat still active?
There is a WhatsApp group, and Leslie [Bibb] and I still speak every day. That was really hard, leaving each other at the end. All of us still chat. It’s weird for me, because I’m so far away. Everyone else went back to LA or New York, so people have hung out. But I’ve just like been like, ‘Bye everyone. I’m going to England now.’ But Patrick [Schwarzenegger] is really good, whenever he’s seen someone in the cast, he’s like, ‘Hey Aimee, I saw Nick today.’ He just tries to keep me in the loop. He asks me when I’m coming to LA, which is really sweet.
Where would you like the next season to be set?
I really want to see them do one in a cold place, like a ski season. I feel like it’s exactly the right kind of clientele for the show, and it’d be so cool to have a snowy vibe. Part of what makes The White Lotus great is everyone being a bit flustered and sweaty, so I’d love to see how that would change – and to see everyone in their great ski outfits.