“The White Lotus” Emmy-winning composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer has officially exited the series amid a dispute with creator Mike White. Tapia de Veer told the New York Times that a clash about the Season 3 theme song was in part the catalyst for the decision to leave the buzzy show.
White wanted “background music … a song that is more like something you would listen to in Ibiza, in some clubby place with a chill, sexy vibe,” according to Tapia de Veer, which did not have the same sound as the previous two other season theme songs.
“I texted the producer and I told him that it would be great to, at some point, give [audiences] the longer version with the ‘ooh-loo-loo-loos,’ because people will explode if they realize that it was going there anyway,” Tapia de Veer said. “He thought it was a good idea. But then Mike cut that — he wasn’t happy about that.”
Tapia de Veer later released the cut, though, as included below. As for Tapia de Veer’s partnership with White, that fell to the wayside. “I mean, at that point, we already had our last fight forever, I think. So he was just saying no to anything,” Tapia de Veer said of White objecting to the longer theme song.
And so Tapia de Veer quiet quit: “I announced to the team a few months ago that I was not coming back, that I was leaving,” Tapia de Veer said. “I didn’t tell Mike for various reasons; I wanted to tell him just at the end for the shock and whatever. Except I told the whole editorial team and music editor and producer and all that, but I didn’t think that they were going to tell him. At some point he heard about that.”
Tapia de Veer compared working on “The White Lotus” to the 1978 French film “La Cage aux folles,” saying, “You know how there’s Albin, which is like the star, and there’s Renato, who is the producer who is always taking care that Albin doesn’t lose his mind about something, because Albin is the diva and Renato is the guy who is trying to make everything work. To me, the show felt very much like that.”
“The White Lotus” was also akin to a “rock ’n’ roll band story,” with White and Tapia de Veer clashing. “I was like, OK, this is like a rock band I’ve been in before where the guitar player doesn’t understand the singer at all,” he said.
IndieWire has reached out to HBO and representatives for White for comment.
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