Season 3 of The White Lotus isn’t the only important series of 2025 to be filmed in Thailand. Noah Hawley’s Alien prequel, Alien: Earth, was also filmed there, featuring a futuristic incarnation of the nation, now referred to as New Siam.
The two series have more in common than merely their filming site; they also share a cast member, as an actor from White Lotus Season 3 has a role in Alien: Earth.
In the inaugural episode of Alien: Earth, Tayme Thapthimthong, who played Gaitok the security guard in the third season of The White Lotus, makes a brief yet impactful appearance. He portrays Anant, a member of the search and rescue squad dispatched to aid survivors of the USCSS Maginot’s crash in Prodigy City.
Sadly for Anant, this is an Alien production, which implies that most characters entering the downed spaceship are unlikely to survive. They will fall prey to the Xenomorph now roaming the debris — or to the four new alien species that were part of the Maginot’s cargo.
Anant becomes one of the initial victims of a new tick-like alien that burrows into his skin and drains his blood, transforming him into a swollen blood balloon. Quite the entrance for this novel creature!
Although Thapthimthong won’t reprise his role in Alien: Earth — losing all your blood generally precludes that — he joins the ranks of other actors who’ve met spectacular ends at the hands of the franchise’s horrifying extraterrestrial beings. This group includes John Hurt from Alien, the original chestburster victim, and Isabela Merced from Alien: Romulus, who birthed and subsequently became a victim of a nightmarish Xenomorph/human hybrid.
Now that Alien: Earth has inadvertently paved the way for a White Lotus crossover, which character from the series would you like to see confront Alien: Earth’s alien adversaries? The clear choice is Parker Posey’s Victoria Ratliff. Can I picture Victoria channeling her inner Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)? Not really, but I’d be eager to hear her Southern accent deliver Ripley’s legendary line, “Get away from her, you bitch.”
New episodes of Alien: Earth debut on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Hulu and FX.