‘The White Lotus’ composer quits show following fall out with Mike White
The White Lotus composer Cristóbal Tapia De Veer has announced his departure from the HBO show due to conflict with showrunner Mike White.
De Veer’s soundtracks and scores have almost become an additional character in the backdrop of all three seasons of The White Lotus. He has won two Emmy Awards for his contribution to the series but will no longer take part.
“I announced to the team a few months ago that I was not coming back, that I was leaving,” the composer revealed in a new interview with the New York Times. “At some point, (White) heard about that,” de Veer continued.
When probed upon whether his exit was definite, de Veer confirmed that he has no plans to work on another season of the hit show, saying, “Yeah, yeah. For sure.”
The composer had been at loggerheads ever since the first season due to creative disagreements regarding the Hawaiian-influenced theme, ‘Hawaiian Hitchcock’.
He explained: “I just stuck to what I was doing. And when I was giving versions, it was still the same thing: There were still crazy people and screaming and stuff like that. From there, it became this weird relationship of, ‘How do I pass all this weird music into the show?'”
A large part of their feud relates to the trademark ‘ooh-loo-loo-loos’, which has become a staple of The White Lotus themes. These are only included in the longer version of season three’s song rather than the one played during the opening credits.
De Veer shared: “I don’t think everybody was really aware of how attached people were to the ooh-loo-loo-loos. People are furious about the change of the theme, and I thought that was interesting. I texted the producer and I told him that it would be great to, at some point, give [fans] the longer version with the ooh-loo-loo-loos because people will explode if they realize that it was going there anyway. He thought it was a good idea. But then Mike cut that — he wasn’t happy about that. At that point, we already had our last fight forever, I think. So he was just saying ‘no’ to anything.”
He also claimed that White believes he is “unprofessional” because he chose to go against the creative vision of others to score the series. However, De Veer described the experience as a “good struggle”.
HBO and White are yet to respond to De Veer’s comments.
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