It was her first audition tape ever. She got the lead in “The White Lotus.”

Logo text

Here is a list of some of the things Marissa Long is not allowed to talk about.

Her character’s name is on White lotus. Nothing else about any other characters White lotus. Any details on the show she’s been filming in the south of France for most of the spring. Whether she shared any scenes with Helena Bonham Carter before the British actress abruptly exited the series after a few weeks of production remains to be seen. Whether Laura Dern, who replaced Carter, will play Long’s mother (the two were seen wearing what appeared to be color-coordinated outfits while filming in Cannes last month, sparking endless speculation online) remains to be seen.

And, of course, who’s going to end up dead in the upcoming season finale of Mike White’s All-Star series — because, of course, someone always does.

“I don’t think I can say,” Long offers with a polite smile whenever she’s asked a taboo question over a Zoom call from Saint-Tropez. “Let’s get out of that.”

However, there’s one detail about the show — which White claimed would be “a little bit about fame” — that Long let slip. She admits that the character she portrays is a young actress promoting a film at the Cannes Film Festival. Which is quite appropriate when you think about it — in a profound Mike White kind of way — considering Long has never been an actress before. Until very recently, she was a 25-year-old model from Tulsa, whose closest connection to the business was helping her actor boyfriend record audition tapes in a Valley bedroom.

But then, one day last November, she decided to record one of her own — and ended up with a lead role in the most prestigious HBO series since Bran Stark ascended to the Iron Throne, or at least since Tom Wambsgans took over Waystar Royco.

“It was the craziest thing that could ever happen, the very definition of surreal,” she says of her amazing luck as a debutante. “My boyfriend was just happy for me, but he was in shock. It was like, ‘Wow.’

Even before you land White lotus gig — along with seasoned performers like Steve Coogan, Vincent Cassel, Sandra Bernhard, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, and Heather Graham, among six others — it was clear that Long was on friendly terms with the universe. Although she grew up as far from the Côte d’Azur as geographically possible — Oklahoma, where her father manages real estate for an industrial gas company and her mother works in holistic health — she caught attention early in life. By the age of 15, she had signed with a local modeling agency and was soon traveling around the country doing fashion shoots for Garage Clothing, Hollister, and Kylie Cosmetics.

Acting was not on her to-do list. Moving to Los Angeles was definitely a must. She packed her bags two days after her 18th birthday, initially settling in Koreatown (“It was the cheapest apartment I could find”) while she continued modeling. Then, about five years ago, at a party in Malibu, she met her boyfriend — Tanner Zagarino, who has a growing resume, playing the gay brother in the series’ third season. The summer she turned beautiful And the impossibly handsome teenager who makes Jason Segel choke on a grape in the series’ second season Shrink.

That’s when Long learned about the self-tapes.

“We did hundreds of them,” she says of the tests Zagarino helped score. “I would act out all these random characters for him behind our iPhones. We had a lot of fun with it. He would encourage me. He would say, ‘You should try acting classes.'”

So, she did, and then signed with her boyfriend, Brandon Bissig’s manager at Canopy Media Partners — who also happens to be actor Adam DeMarco, Michael Imperioli’s son in White lotus‘Season Two – and within a few months she was recording her first audition tape, this time with Tanner feeding her lines from the other side of the phone.

Turns out it was a doozy.

“We had been looking for a while, we must have seen at least 100 actors, no exaggeration,” he says. White lotus Executive producer Dave Bernad. “But then we watched Marissa’s audition, and the reaction was immediate. It was like we had finally found her. Even on tape, she had such authenticity. She just lit up the screen.”

Long’s reaction to landing the part was also immediate. “I was in my bedroom closet getting ready to go to breakfast with Tanner and my manager called me,” she recalls. “I’ve never had a more physical response to any moment in my life. I was crying and jumping for joy all at once. It was really unique.”

She’s been filming in France since April — the entire season takes about six months — and she’s learning the job on the job. “She’s not experienced enough to know some of the different slang on set, so you have to be a little patient,” says Bernad. “But she’s so natural and so comfortable in front of the camera, which is something you can’t teach. It’s just an inherent quality that some actors have, and she has it. I was on set last week watching a scene and I was shocked. I was thinking to myself, ‘I can’t believe this is the first time she’s done this.’

Long can’t. “I’m having the time of my life,” she says. “The actors and I all got closer so quickly because we’re all together in this beautiful place. Every day we wake up and go out and say, ‘Oh my God, this is the most amazing thing ever.'”

Subscribe subscription