‘White Lotus’ Creator Mike White Returning to ‘Survivor’ for Milestone Season

White Lotus creator Mike White will soon be taking the furthest thing from a luxury vacation, as he will compete on Survivor for the second time.

On Wednesday, May 28, Survivor host Jeff Probst appeared on CBS Mornings, where he revealed that White, 54, would be part of the epic cast of returning players for the show’s 50th season.

The three-time Emmy winner was the runner-up on season 37 (“David vs. Goliath”) of the reality competition series, which aired in 2018.

Probst, 63, said the filmmaker always expressed interest in giving the survival show another go.

“Mike, after he finished playing, said, ‘I want to play again.’ And that was before White Lotus. And then White Lotus hit, and I thought, ‘Well he’ll never play again,'” Probst recalled. “But he kept texting and saying, ‘Look, I’m serious. If you ever do anything where you have returning players, I want to play again.'”

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CBS Mornings co-host Vladimir Duthiers questioned whether White’s star power would influence other players in the game who perhaps want a “career in Hollywood.”

“Don’t think Mike White, who is clever enough to write and direct ‘White Lotus,’ has not thought about that,” Probst responded. “I’m sure it’s gone through his head too.”

Joining White in the show’s 50th season will be Angelina Keeley and Christian Hubicki, who previously competed in the same season as him.

Both Keeley, 35, and Hubicki, 39, also appeared on White Lotus. Keeley played one of the resort’s vacationers in season 2 and had a couple of lines, while fans spotted Hubicki as a background actor in season 3, episode 5.

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Probst explained that it was extremely challenging to select the 24 people who would compete in the milestone season.

“Casting Survivor 50 was kind of like casting the ultimate all-time movie,” he shared. “And you think about all the actors that are alive today that you could put in that movie, but there’s only so many roles. And we wanted 50 to be a little taste of everything.”

Survivor season 50 is set to premiere sometime in 2026.