During an explosive White Lotus episode on March 16 which saw the hotel guests embracing the Full Moon party revelry (complete with a disturbing incestuous kiss between the Ratcliffe brothers Saxon and Lochlan), a surprise cameo from Sam Rockwell was the icing on the cake. As Rick (played by Walton Goggins) got ready to settle a personal score in Bangkok, he arranged a meeting with his longtime friend Frank–during which a camomile tea-drinking Rockwell embarked on a nearly five-minute-long monologue about sex and identity. Not only has Rockwell’s viral appearance already sparked a meme, but fans are also now just finding out that Rockwell is the longtime partner of fellow White Lotus star Leslie Bibb.
While Bibb and Rockwell’s relationship has spanned over 15 years, the couple are pretty private. Rockwell doesn’t have social media (although he makes regular appearances on Bibb’s Instagram page), and their joint red carpet appearances are relatively few and far between. However, White Lotus’s third season isn’t the first time that the Popular actress and the Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri actor have worked on the same project together. Both Rockwell and Bibb previously starred in Marvel’s Iron Man 2, with Rockwell playing villain Justin Hammer while Bibb played journalist Christine Everheart.
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Despite their romantic connection, Bibb debunked speculation that she got him the part. “No, they came to me and they were like, ‘We’re going to offer this to Sam,'” Bibb told Entertainment Weekly. “I was on the treadmill and [producer] Dave Bernad came to me. But I was like, ‘Sam is wild as a buck. Listen, I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s doing a movie in South Africa, he likes time to prep.’ And he was very nervous about that prep time.”
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“That was a big arc to do that quickly,” Bibb said about Frank’s scene-stealing debut, where the character tells an openly-aghast Rock about his sexual journey figuring out whether he identifies as an Asian woman. The actress–who plays Kate in the toxic friend trio opposite Michelle Monoghan and Carrie Coon–also revealed that Goggins might have also helped convince Rockwell to take the part.
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“I was like, ‘That jet plane’s going to fly, I can’t ground him.’ But then it was really sweet—I think Walton really, because they’re very good friends, wanted to have that experience with him,” she shared.
