White Lotus Actress Leslie Bibb Gives Her Take On Longtime Partner Sam Rockwell’s Shock Scene In the Latest Episode

Leslie Bibb, one of the stars of HBO’s hit show White Lotus, joined CNN on Tuesday morning and discussed the eyebrow-raising monologue by Sam Rockwell on Sunday’s episode. Bibb, who has dated  Rockwell for decades, offered her take on what show creator Mike White was saying with Rockwell’s character’s “confronting monologue” — as Bibb called it.

CNN began the interview by showing a clip of Bibb’s character having an awkward exchange with Parker Posey’s character. White Lotus follows several groups of different characters staying at luxury hotels amid the backdrop of lingering danger and self-destruction.

“What’s it like actually working with her?” CNN anchor Sara Sidner asked Bibb after the clip rolled.

“Well, that was the first time we worked together, so I’m a huge Parker Posey fan. Like ‘Party Girl’–” Bibb began as both she and Sidner praised Posey, who is a fan favorite from the show.

“A 90’s like– she’s everything so it was my first scene and my partner Sam, who’s an actor, is like I feel like they were the king and queen of like Sundance together they were doing all the movies when at Sundance you got like a washing machine when you go there. Before it became like something else. And that was my first scene with her. And so I was so, I mean, my hands were shaking. I was like, oh my God. So it actually is kind of great because again, it’s like art imitating life. Like it’s all the nerves I had, I just put it into old Kate Bohr, old Kate Bohr,” Bibb added, referring to her character’s name.

“First of all, you mentioned Sam, you’re talking about Sam Rockwell, who people may know was on this week’s episode. I’m not going to ask about that because I know a lot of people aren’t up to speed on that yet–” added John Berman.

“I know, right? But yeah, how about the fact that I had to keep it secret? So we…” Bibb replied as Sidner interjected, “Did you help him? Or did you just know about it and you had to hold it?”

“No, no, no, I, he was a last minute [addition], that came in last minute, like maybe two, two weeks before he was going to, they were going to film it, so it was very last minute. I said to them when they offered it to him, I was like, if he doesn’t do it, don’t get mad at me. And they were like, Mike’s like, I’m not going to get mad at you, I was like, please do not take it out on me, that guy has his own choice. But yeah, it was very, very, very last minute, that thing,” Bibb replied.

“My wife and I, and now my two sons who are 18, are obsessed with the show, so thank you for that,” joked Berman in response, referencing the very explicit nature of Rockwell’s monologue.

Berman then asked Bibb about her character and the two friends she’s traveling with in the show, who have a lot of unresolved tension and drama between them.

“You know, that’s happening and I think that Mike is really, he’s doing something, he’s talking about how the way we connect is in this comparative way and this competitive way,” Bibb replied, adding:

And like, I wonder if Sam has this monologue that happens in this episode five, and it’s a very confronting monologue. But I think what’s cool because Carrie and Michelle [the actresses who play Bibb’s friends on the show] and I said if these women had just walked in, in the very beginning, and been really honest, which is very scary to do and very vulnerable to say, here’s my truth, my marriage isn’t this, or this is this, I just got laid off, I’m drinking, whatever your truth is, to just say this with your friends, I think it would have been a very different trip.

And that’s what’s so sort of the juxtaposition of Sam giving this monologue that’s like fully, unapologetically his truth, and we’ll see what happens with that truth and how it all shakes out. I feel like there’s something that Mike is really saying about living. I keep going back to unapologetically and honestly – and authentically.

Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect that while Bibb and Rockwell have dated for some twenty years, they never officially announced they were married.

Watch the clip above via CNN.