Less than a minute after Parker Posey appears on my screen, she’s already showing off a souvenir from her time filming The White Lotus in Thailand.
“Look at this scarf from Jim Thompson,” she says, getting up from her chair to hold up the piece. “He’s a designer. He really invigorated the Thai [silk] industry in the ’50s and is rumored to have been a CIA agent. But look…” At this point, the scarf’s palm-tree pattern is covering her whole camera lens. “Isn’t that beautiful?”
Posey is wearing a similar printed kerchief—though this one’s from the Hotel Saint Vincent—around her neck, which complements her round pink sunglasses. It’s not too far from what Victoria Ratliff, the wealthy North Carolina mother of three she plays on The White Lotus, would wear on her family trip, which seems to be going downhill fast. In fact, she did wear a lot of Jim Thompson on the series.
“Victoria really doesn’t want to leave her room, but she does go to the gift shop and buys a cotton dress and then a pretty scarf, so yeah, this is a total souvenir,” Posey says. “I really love the prints and the textiles in Thailand and Asia. It was so beautiful.”
In her latest endeavor, starring in Gap’s new spring campaign, the actress sports a bit more of a subdued wardrobe, but her energy is high. She dances like no one is watching in the campaign video, wearing a classic trench coat, carpenter jeans, ribbed shirts, cotton tees, and layered tanks from the brand’s new collection. It’s photographed by Amy Troost, directed by Talia Collis, and choreographed by Sadie Wilking, set to METTE’s song “Mama’s Eyes.”
“I’d seen some videos that they did on YouTube, and it was like, ‘Oh my God, I love this. Please, I can come in, and you can teach me dance steps. I love to dance. This is going to be really fun,’” she says of joining forces with Gap. Once she got to set, “there were all these dancers who could be my children,” she jokes. “So it was like meeting my young self. And I felt like the ’90s were back, and that vibe and that expression, and just being comfortable to dance and and not really look so much at your body but the attitude underneath it. And that just felt really inspiring, and I really enjoyed seeing that strength in the dancers and the fun.”
She adds, “I wasn’t on TikTok, but I love the dance craze. It was one of the things that made me want to act when I was a little girl, was dancing from the TV and watching the people move and the dancers dance. And so I was excited. I was really touched to be a part of it.” Posey’s campaign follows a string of choreography-filled visuals for Gap, with previous ones starring Tyla and Troye Sivan. “I loved that one. It was so fun to watch,” she said of the latter.
“I think when we’re watching things on our phone, and we’re seeing this choreography, it [propels] people to be strong inside. They project themselves onto the dancers and then carry on with their day with this kind of inner liberation or freedom. So it makes sense that dance has become more popular in fashion.” On that point, she naturally brings up Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” video, which dropped just a few weeks before. “You can tell they spent a lot of time on it, and it’s like mini cinema,” she says in awe.
Speaking of cinema and dance, Posey’s iconic 1995 film Party Girl turns 30 this year. “What I love about Party Girl is just how witty it is, and the jokes, and it just it goes by like that,” she says with a snap. “It’s not messy, it’s sharp, it’s got style, it’s got color, it’s got humor, it’s got heart.”
Looking back to that time in her life, she reminisces on how “pure and fun” New York felt as a young actor living in the city in a rent-controlled apartment she stayed in for 13 years. “And there were so many free spirits around, right? Gay, lesbian, anybody, everybody, and there was this acceptance. And people really danced in the street.”
She acknowledges the legacy of the Party Girl costumes too. “It was a collaborative experience with our wardrobe designer, Michael Clancy, borrowing and coming to my wardrobe closet,” she says. “You were mixing vintage and high fashion at the same time, because you go to thrift shops and you find this designer thing and then something else could be just from the Goodwill.”
These days though, you’ll see Posey every Sunday night on The White Lotus—with the likes of Jason Isaacs, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Michelle Monaghan, and more—as season 3 continues to unfold. Filming the show in Thailand for seven months “was a lot, it was rigorous and extreme because it’s really hot at times, but what an experience,” she says. And getting to reunite with her co-stars at the L.A. premiere was “a blast.”
“We went through it all together, and it’s the third pack-a-punch season. I think when you do one and two, the third season is the pinnacle, and people seem to love it, so that was great.”
After our call, Posey traveled all the way back to Bangkok for the Thai premiere of The White Lotus. I bring up how Victoria struggled to adjust to the time difference, taking a badly-timed nap and then a lorazepam to fall asleep. Posey, however, assures she’ll be just fine with the help of some eye drops and espresso. “I’m a lot better than Victoria at handling jet lag,” she laughs.