Michelle Monaghan Had One Worry Before Joining The White Lotus Cast

Joining the cast of the hit HBO series "The White Lotus" could be intimidating for many reasons. The show became a wild success, mixing gorgeous images of travel with soapy melodrama and a fair amount of sex appeal, so whoever's on it is guaranteed quite a bit of public attention, for better and worse. Created by Mike White, each season of "The White Lotus" is set at a different location of the fictional White Lotus hotel chain, and in season 3, the show went to Thailand and had its biggest, wildest story and ensemble cast yet. 

Playing super-hot celebrity and actor Jaclyn Lemon is Michelle Monaghan of "True Detective" season 1 fame, and even though her storyline is fairly tame by "The White Lotus" standards, it turns out that Monaghan was still pretty intimidated by joining the cast for one major reason: her hair. In an interview with People magazine, the naturally brunette Monaghan revealed that she was really worried about going blonde for "The White Lotus," and explained how they managed to make it work. 

As one of three friends on a girls' trip, the glamorous Jaclyn felt like a major departure for Monaghan. She explained that she was worried about bleaching her hair blonde and maintaining it over several months of filming in Thailand, but celebrity colorist Tracey Cunningham flew back and forth between the U.S. and Thailand to keep her hair healthy and the right shade of blonde. That sounds like the kind of thing Monaghan's character might do, and probably helped her embrace the role a bit more. She told People: 

"It was so fun being Jaclyn, because Jaclyn is such a departure from me specifically in terms of look. She likes the makeup, she likes the pink tan, she likes the blonde hair. It's done. She does herself up. And so it was just a really very fun role too, to inhabit."

By having Cunningham help with her hair, she was able to go back to her dark, natural color after filming ended and reported no issues with her hair's health. Maybe HBO needs to get her on board on "House of the Dragon" and see if we can do something about all of those sketchy wigs. It would be a lot of fun to see Jaclyn visit the White Lotus again in the future, too, so maybe Cunningham will get another chance to maintain Monaghan's locks in another exotic locale in an upcoming season. Characters can always return, as long as they're not dead, so why not?