Michelle Monaghan Says Tessa Role in Westmont Village Excites Her
michelle monaghan said she is joining Westmont Village as Tessa and described the project as one she is “very excited” about. The role arrives after 26 years in acting, with her recent turn as Jaclyn Lemon in The White Lotus still part of the same conversation around her work.
“I was very nervous about doing the show, to be honest,” Monaghan said of The White Lotus. She added that Mike White wrote “a very fun, colorful and vivacious woman” for Jaclyn Lemon, a character she said walks into every room and pulls attention toward her.
Jaclyn Lemon and Thailand
Monaghan’s White Lotus run also carried a location premium: filming took her to Thailand. She called the experience “a very special experience” and said the mosquitoes were “really rough,” a practical reminder that prestige series still come with real production conditions, even when the finished work reads as polished and effortless.
“Collaborating with Mike—he’s just a genius,” she said, adding that he is “really great at understanding each of our processes.” For a performer who has been on screen since 2000, that kind of writer-actor fit is part of what keeps a role from feeling routine.
Diane Ford, Harmony Faith Lane
Monaghan also pointed back to two older characters that still shape how she talks about her career. She said, “I really love a woman named Diane Ford [in Trucker ],” and described the part as “a very interesting, layered woman” after learning to drive an 18-wheeler and absorbing the culture of trucking.
She said Harmony Faith Lane in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was “very sassy, fun and quick-witted,” and called it one of her favorite characters. Those are the roles that tell you where an actor’s range has actually been tested: not just in the headline series, but in parts that required a specific skill set or a sharper comic edge.
Westmont Village, Tessa
Monaghan said, “I’m going to be a part of Westmont Village [the show’s fictional town], so I’m very excited about the project,” and added, “My name is Tessa, and that’s about all I can say.” That gives the upcoming project a clear hook for viewers: a named character, a fictional setting, and a performer who is already using her White Lotus profile to keep her next move visible.
She also described another upcoming drama in which she is “a high school hockey coach” in a town in northern Minnesota, which suggests her next stretch will keep moving between sharply defined characters rather than repeating the same screen persona. For Monaghan, that is the stronger business proposition than nostalgia: a career built on roles that actually look different when the credits roll.
