You’re not the only one with strong feeling about those missing “ooh-loo-loo-loos.”
The White Lotus composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer says he’s not returning for the HBO drama’s fourth season after feuding with creator Mike White over show’s score across its acclaimed three seasons.
The three-time Emmy winner — whose signature tribal score is practically a character on the series — told The New York Times that he is exiting the show.
“I announced to the [editorial] team a few months ago that I was not coming back, that I was leaving,” he said. “At some point, [White] heard about that.” Pressed whether was for certain leaving the series, de Veer replied, “Yeah, yeah. For sure.”
The composer claimed White originally didn’t like the first season’s “Hawaiian Hitchcock” theme with its famed “ooh-loo-loo-loos,” and their relationship has been a creative struggle ever since. “I just stuck to what I was doing,” de Veer said. “And when I was giving versions, it was still the same thing: There were still crazy people and screaming and stuff like that. From there, it became this weird relationship of, ‘How do I pass all this weird music into the show?’”
For the opening theme song for current Thailand-set season three, the show didn’t include the “ooh-loo-loo-loos” for the 1:45 minute opening credits, yet they were still part of the full version of the track.
“I don’t think everybody was really aware of how attached people were to the ooh-loo-loo-loos,” he said. “People are furious about the change of the theme, and I thought that was interesting. I texted the producer and I told him that it would be great to, at some point, give [fans] the longer version with the ooh-loo-loo-loos because people will explode if they realize that it was going there anyway. He thought it was a good idea. But then Mike cut that — he wasn’t happy about that. At that point, we already had our last fight forever, I think. So he was just saying ‘no’ to anything.”
Many fans have grown to really like the Thailand season version of the theme as the episodes have unfolded, and de Veer’s score within the episodes has remained as intense and engaging as ever.
“Maybe I was being unprofessional, and, for sure, Mike feels that I was always unprofessional to him because I didn’t give him what he wanted,” he added. “But what I gave him did this, you know — [won] those Emmys, people going crazy [for the show]… That is the main thing that I’m most happy about — it was worth all the tension and almost forcing the music into the show, in a way, because I didn’t have that many allies in there … This was a good struggle.”
While it’s always possible de Veer might be somehow persuaded to return for the show’s fourth round, the composer’s comments certainly seem rather firm. HBO and White had no comment.
The news comes as The White Lotus is enjoying its highest-ever ratings. The most recent episode reached 4.8 million overnight viewers. The third season finale of The White Lotus airs this Sunday.
For more, read The Hollywood Reporter‘s oral history of the show’s third season, which includes candid commentary by White and the full cast.
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