John Valerio (‘The White Lotus’ editor) on ‘very surreal’ Emmy win and whether Ethan and Daphne ‘hooked up’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
Last year, John Valerio (“The White Lotus”) won the Emmy Award for Best Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Limited Series, but he readily admits he “never imagined” his name would be called. “The proof of that is that I was not wearing a tux … I just wore a suit that I had and yeah, I was just like completely shocked,” he tells us. The editor calls the experience “very surreal” and that it was “all a blur.” Now Valerio has a chance of winning a bookend Emmy for Season 2 of the HBO series, which is switching categories from Limited Series to Drama Series. Watch our exclusive video interview above.
As the show’s editor, does Valerio actually get to travel to the exotic locations like Hawaii (for Season 1) and Sicily (for Season 2)? “I got to go to Sicily,” he confirms. “I was there for about a month and a half, almost two months. I was going around shooting a lot of the second unit stuff, all the sort of beauty shots you see, the transitions, things like that.” Showrunner Mike White encouraged him to record his “wishlist” shots for connecting scenes, “And I was out doing that in the day and cutting in the evening,” he reveals.
Valerio and White originally collaborated together on “Enlightened,” HBO’s cult comedy series from 2011-13. The editor explains, “We had a great relationship. Mike enjoyed working with me … The timing of ‘White Lotus’ Season 1 worked out where I was finally able to reunite with him.”
One of Valerio’s “fundamental cores” working on “The White Lotus,” a show that regularly plays with different genres, is, “Do I believe it? I would say that’s what it comes down to. Whether it’s funny or it’s dramatic or crazy, is it done in a way that we believe it? And I think that’s kind of what I lean on as far as pulling it off.”
One scene in the finale that garnered a lot of discussion online was between Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Daphne (Meghann Fahy), with viewers debating whether they walked off into the distance and fooled around or not. What is Valerio’s take? “I think it’s done in a way that’s very suggestive. How far it went, I don’t know. For me, I think yes, something definitely happened … they definitely hooked up.” He adds, “What’s fun about the show is people sort of become attached to these characters and they’re really engaged and are living with them. And they almost feel like they kind of build their own relationship with these characters, you know?”
Also in our exclusive video interview, Valerio talks about shooting Jennifer Coolidge‘s final moments, he illustrates one deleted scene with F. Murray Abraham, he relives the long tracking shot in the finale between Mia (Beatrice Grannò) and Lucia (Simona Tabasco), and he tells us his “proudest moment” on the show.
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