The White Lotus is set to welcome a new cast of characters for season four, joining the ranks of previous stars including Sydney Sweeney, Aubrey Plaza, Walton Goggins and Natasha Rothwell.
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Watch: ‘White Lotus’ Season 4 Location Revealed? All the Details
A killer new cast is checking into The White Lotus.
Following in the footsteps of Sydney Sweeney, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Coolidge, the HBO satire is set to welcome a fresh set of characters for season four—and they’re bringing the nostalgia.
Hunger Games alum Alexander Ludwig and Aly & AJ singer AJ Michalka have officially joined the cast, HBO confirmed Dec. 19.
As Aly, 34, wrote on her Instagram Story, “Checking in.”
After getting her start on Disney Channel, Aly went on to star in The Lovely Bones, The Goldbergs and, most recently, The Masked Singer—during which she placed third as Strawberry Shortcake in 2024.
As for Alexander—who said he was “so honored” to join White Lotus—the 33-year-old had a long-running role as Bjorn Lothbrok on Vikings for six years. And, like AJ, he too has musical talents, releasing his debut country album Highway 99 in 2022.
Details on their White Lotus roles haven’t been shared.
In addition to welcoming new faces, the anthology series will also embrace an all-new locale, continuing the trend of setting each season at a fictional hotel in a different location. After following storylines in Hawaii during season one, Italy for season two and Thailand for season three, the next installment will focus on a luxury resort in France, as series alum Parker Posey confirmed to E! News in September.
And while the Mike White-led dramedy’s incoming stars will be surrounded by lavish amenities during filming, no one will be getting special treatment when it comes to compensation. In June, season three star Jason Isaacs confirmed that each actor receives roughly $40,000 per episode, which he admitted was not a hefty payday.
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“Generally actors don’t talk about pay in public because it’s ridiculously disproportionate to what we do—putting on makeup and funny voices—and just upsets the public,” he told Variety at the time. “But compared to what people normally get paid for big television shows, that’s a very low price.”
Still, the team behind the Emmy-winning franchise explained that giving their performers a level playing field salary-wise is a way to keep the focus on making great TV.
“Everyone is treated the same on White Lotus,” producer David Bernard told The Hollywood Reporter in April. “They get paid the same, and we do alphabetical billing, so you’re getting people who want to do the project for the right reasons.”
Similarly, casting director Meredith Tucker noted that the strategy makes luring the best talent for the murder-mystery series “so much easier.”
“You tell people this is what it is,” she told THR. “And some won’t do it—and honestly, you can’t hold it against people who need to make a living. Our series regulars are pretty much doing this for scale.”
Dying to check in early? Keep reading for everything we know so far about The White Lotus season four…
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Unlocking Agtech innovation
Putting smallholder farmers at the heart of agricultural technologies.
Smallholder farmers are an essential piece of the world’s food production system. As global demand for food rises, agricultural technologies offer new opportunities to increase farming productivity, profitability and environmental sustainability—so why are these farmers being left behind?
Income, equity and environmental impact
Trisna Mulyati grew up in Aceh, Indonesia, during a period of hostility. For almost 30 years, as the Free Aceh Movement fought for the province’s independence, one of the key issues fanning the flames of the conflict was the distribution of wealth generated by Aceh’s natural resources.
While the conflict was largely focused on oil, natural gas and timber, the questions it raised of income, equity and environmental impact would go on to shape Trisna’s future path. She left home at 17, moving to Bandung to pursue an industrial engineering degree. Even then, Aceh was never far from her mind.
“I was always thinking about my hometown problems. I got into the best engineering university and deliberately chose a program that offered a systems approach to solving problems,” says Trisna, now a PhD candidate at the UTS Transdisciplinary School.
As her career began, Trisna found herself drawn to the agricultural technology (agtech) sector, inspired in part by her own family’s farming background. Agtech refers to tools, technologies and business models that can improve farming productivity, profitability and environmental sustainability.
But despite agtech’s massive potential, Trisna soon discovered that its benefits weren’t being equally shared among the farming community.
“Having worked in this space for eight years in both academia and industry, unfortunately I’ve seen small farmers being continuously left behind,” she says.
It’s a challenge that embodies many of the themes that defined Trisna’s experience of the Aceh conflict: If smallholder farmers are such a central piece of the global farming puzzle, why aren’t they sharing in agtech’s spoils?
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Doctoral researcher, School of Transdisciplinary Innovation
Farmers at the forefront of agricultural innovation
Agriculture is a vital global system, producing the food that sustains human life and driving economic and employment opportunities around the world. Smallholder farmers (those who operate on less than 10 hectares) are an essential cog in the machine: of the world’s 608 million family farms, 85% are smaller than 2 hectares but produce 35% of the world’s food.
But global demand for food is rising, and so too are the social and environmental impacts associated with contemporary farming. Agtech offers new opportunities to address these challenges by increasing crop yields and profits, improving the environmental outcomes of contemporary farming practices, and preparing farmers for the ongoing challenge of climate change.
For many smallholder farmers, however, gaining access to these innovations remains a distant dream, even as these technologies offer real opportunities to improve their lives. In part, this is because agtech innovators are often far removed from the farms they’re designing for. In turn, the tools they produce don’t always reflect the needs of farmers, if they even reach them in the first place.
For Trisna, who spent years working in and around the agriculture sector before landing at UTS, it’s an all-too-familiar challenge. With no viable solution in sight, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
“My research explores how these smallholders can be better included in the increasing trend of technology advancement and neo-rural entrepreneurship. This isn’t necessarily about developing new agtech tools, but about accessible and relevant innovation adaptation, implementation, and ultimately diffusion,” she says.
Bridging this gap means bringing innovators, farmers and intermediaries together to rethink the role of agritech at the smallholder scale. The goal is to enable conversations and partnerships in which farmers are central to the development of solutions that benefit farming communities, the agriculture system and the environment alike.
“There’s enormous potential for technology-driven growth, but agtech start-ups need to go-beyond fly-in, fly-out models. Farmers need long-tern partnerships, not one-time interventions,” Trisna says.
608M
Family farms around the world
What is AgTech?
AgTech, short for agricultural technology, is the use of innovative tools and data-driven solutions to make farming more efficient, sustainable and profitable. From precision sensors and smart irrigation to automated harvesting, AgTech is transforming how we grow and produce food around the world.
We need an approach where the farmer’s point of view is better understood. It’s about creating change with access to relevant innovations, entrepreneurial pathways and more sustainable livelihoods.
Trisna Mulyati
Rethinking global farming practices
Despite the global scale of the problem, Trisna’s approach has been to start small, focusing on smallholder farmers in Indonesia. In her first year, she conducted extensive fieldwork and data collection in four provinces in Indonesia: Jakarta, West Java, Bali and Aceh.
She and her collaborators interviewed 131 agtech stakeholders, including farmers, startups, NGOs, companies and governments to better understand the gap between agtech innovation and application. What do farmers want and need from agtech? How can innovators translate these wants and needs into meaningful, usable and sustainable solutions?
As Trisna had suspected, getting innovators and farmers in the room together turned out to be a crucial step.
25-30%
of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food systems
We were able to connect agtech actors who otherwise might never have really talked to each other. Being aware of and [understanding] how to handle the existing tensions between different [stakeholder] perspectives in the agriculture innovation system is really important here
Trisna Mulyati
The research is still in its early stages, but already, Trisna and her collaborators have produced a series of findings that are pointing both innovators and farmers in the right direction.
This includes the creation of 10 best practices for agtech startups that reinforce the need to work closely with smallholder farmers. Among them are on-farm demonstrations of agtech tools, collaborations that enable effective farm financing and prioritising farmer return on investment.
Equitable access drives sustainable change
Already, these efforts are enabling more equitable access to agtech among smallholder farmers, leading to visible shifts towards more sustainable farming outcomes. These include small changes that create new income streams, reduce environmental impacts and build stronger farming networks.
“The work is already creating change, like supporting women farmers to move from wood-fired cooking to cleaner technologies and turning everyday farm waste into natural fertiliser that can be sold,” Trisna says.
“I’ve also seen new collaboration initiatives and innovation models being discussed, planned and implemented. For example, I’m now informally advising a social enterprise in Aceh that is building a regenerative farmers hub.”
Trisna’s work might currently be based in Indonesia, but her vision is for a sustainable agricultural system that will be reordered to meet the needs of smallholder farmers around the world. And she’s already on the way: while the research is still in its early stages, it offers a potent glimpse of how opening the door to innovation for the game’s smallest players can lead to outsized benefits for us all.
At UTS, Trisna Mulyati is building a greener, more equitable global farming system. Because it’s not just a university – it’s a partner for a more sustainable future. What can we be for you?
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Turning challenges into change for a sustainable future
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At TD Research, we don’t just study problems – we work across disciplines and public and private sectors to co-create solutions and navigate positive paths forward. Our approach blends systems science, socio-cultural insight and design-led innovation to tackle challenges that no single field can solve alone. This is one of our competitive advantages and what makes us so unique.
By partnering with us, you gain access to a world-class team that’s skilled in navigating complexity, fostering collaboration and turning bold ideas into actionable strategies. Together, we can shape a more inclusive, resilient and forward-looking society.
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