Will Sharpe spent his time on season 2 of The White Lotus in the shadow of volcano. That could easily be a metaphor, given that the up-and-coming British writer, director, and actor was joining a cast that included Hollywood veterans like Jennifer Coolidge, F. Murray Abraham, and Michael Imperioli. But when you’re in Taormina, Sicily, it’s a literal volcano— Mt. Etna, to be precise. As Sharpe puts it, “I felt like I had to remind myself on a daily basis that that’s not a hologram, that really is a volcano.”

Like the first season, The White Lotus season 2 opens with a very specific mystery— whose body (or bodies?) is floating in the ocean? But Sharpe’s character Ethan is at the center of another intriguing mystery that unfolds throughout the first episode: why are he and his attorney wife Harper (Aubrey Plaza) on vacation with extremely rich friends (Theo James’s Cameron and Meghann Fahey’s Daphne) who they seem to have nothing in common with? Sharpe, who has of course filmed the entire series, isn’t giving anything away, but on this week’s Still Watching offers Richard Lawson a few theories. “I honestly feel like he hasn’t really thought it through properly,” Sharpe says, noting that Ethan has recently struck it rich in the tech world and found himself in a new echelon of wealth he’s not quite comfortable with. “I think maybe on a subconscious level, Ethan does have his own reasons for accepting the invitation beyond just like, ‘Hey, maybe like now we have this money, it’s okay for us to go on a big, splashy holiday like this. Let’s see how it goes.”

On this week’s Still Watching podcast, Richard and his co-host Chris Murphy kick off a new season and discuss this return to the world of The White Lotus, from the marital challenges already facing Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya to, yes, speculating about whose dead body is found in the show’s opening flash-forward. Listen below, and find a partial transcript of the Will Sharpe interview as well. For your own questions, theories, or volcano stories, please e-mail stillwatchingpod@gmail.com

I’m curious how you got involved in the show. Were you a big White Lotus season one fan and made it a mission to to do the next thing with Mike White? Or how did it come about?

I mean, I was a fan of the show, um, and a fan of Mike White. But no, I didn’t dare even to imagine that I might be involved in a second season. For me it was just an email that came in asking to tape for it, and then a couple of rounds later I was very surprised to be a part of the second season. And I think I kind of just assumed it was some kind of terrible mistake that they made. But yeah, obviously very excited  to have the opportunity to work with Mike and so many other brilliant people.

And to be in this beautiful place in Sicily. Um, I I’m curious what the, what the filming was like. You’re mostly with these other three actors, it’s the four of you in so many of your scenes. What was that kind of intensity like both being on location and, and in this little tightly knit quartet?

We’d all gone to a place that we wouldn’t normally be in order to play characters who have gone on vacation to a place they wouldn’t normally be. Taormina Sicily, which is where we shot the majority of the show, is a sort of extraordinarily beautiful town. And Mount Etna, the volcano, looms quite large over it in a, I found quite surreal. I felt like I almost had to remind myself on a daily basis that that’s not a hologram, that really is a volcano. But it meant that we had time to  get to know each other and to establish a chemistry, and it meant that whenever we were on set, there was a level of comfort and trust with one another that gave us a little bit space to play.