Michael Christopher White (born June 28, 1970) is an American filmmaker and actor.[1] He created, writes, and directs the ongoing HBO satirical comedy anthology series The White Lotus, for which he has won three Primetime Emmy Awards.
He frequently collaborates with actor–writer Jack Black on films. Together they formed the production company Black and White, which closed in 2006.[9] White is not a fan of classic rock, but he wrote School of Rock specifically so Black could perform his own favorite rock music.[10]
Laura Dern brought White into a project with HBO which became the series Enlightened that premiered on October 10, 2011. Dern's character, Amy Jellicoe, goes to a Hawaiian retreat after her professional life publicly implodes, and is introduced to meditation. White himself had suffered an on-the-job meltdown while running an earlier television series, and incorporated elements of that experience, as well as his own exploration of Buddhist meditation, into the new series' plot.[15][7] White wrote the pilot and all the episodes in the first and second seasons.[3]
White is a credited writer on The Emoji Movie; he spent three weeks with the film's screenwriters and helped with the structure of the script. For this project he received a Golden Raspberry Award.[16][17] He wrote and directed the 2017 film Brad's Status.
In 2021, White created, wrote, and directed The White Lotus, a satirical limited series for HBO, after being approached by HBO during the COVID-19 pandemic for ideas.[18][19][20] HBO went on to greenlight two more seasons, which have different locations and casts and very little continuity between them.[21] White has brought back three actors over the course of the series: Jennifer Coolidge, Natasha Rothwell, and Jon Gries. The concept for the series was "partly inspired" by White's work on an earlier proposed series which was never picked up by any network: The Tears of St. Patsy, which would have featured "Coolidge as a frustrated actor navigating a dangerous world".[21] In 2023, White alluded to this earlier setback when he won a Golden Globe for The White Lotus and said: "Everybody passed. I know you all passed".[21]
Meanwhile, White continued to work on the third season of The White Lotus, whose release was delayed to 2025 by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.[23] As of March 2025, The White Lotus was averaging millions of viewers per episode.[24] It became "the biggest hit" of White's career, drawing comparisons to the best shows of the prestige television era of the 2010s.[21] About finding his greatest success in his mid-fifties, White compared himself to a surfer waiting for a wave who is just about to swim in: "And then I catch a wave? I'm definitely going to ride this wave".[21]
The Amazing Race
White appeared on the fourteenth season of The Amazing Race along with his father Mel.[25] They lasted for seven legs before being eliminated in sixth place in Phuket, Thailand. Mel and Mike returned to compete in The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business, where they were the second team eliminated in Japan after they both developed hypothermia.[26] Both times, he ended up stuck on the island of Ko Samui, which was used by the show as its elimination station, and because of those unhappy memories, he was reluctant at first to return there to film the third season of The White Lotus.[27]
Survivor
White was a contestant on Survivor: David vs. Goliath, as a member of the Goliath tribe, then to reshuffled Jabeni tribe and the merged Kalokalo tribe.[28] He made it to Day 39 and received three jury votes, finishing in second place behind the winner, Nick Wilson.
White said he had been a big fan of the show, and because of his connections had developed a friendship with the show's host Jeff Probst, providing the host suggestions towards improving the show. For instance, Probst stated that it was White who discouraged him from bringing back Redemption Island for Survivor: San Juan del Sur.[29] At some point White decided to start trying out to be a participant of the show, but he failed to be picked over what he believed was a concern of having "sloppy seconds" from other reality television programs. White noted that once he was selected, he had had no other conversations with Probst until the game was concluded.[30]
Several of White's fellow Survivor players have appeared in cameos on The White Lotus, including Alec Merlino (season 1), Angelina Keeley and Kara Kay (season 2), and Natalie Cole and Carl Boudreaux (season 3).[31]
In 2025, White was announced as a contestant on Survivor: In the Hands of the Fans, the fiftieth season of the show.[32]
Steve Baker, Ricky Blitt, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda, Bob Odenkirk, Bill O'Malley, Matthew Alec Portenoy, Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo, Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken, and Jonas Wittenmark – Movie 43 (2013)
