No monkey business.
Michelle Monaghan, who plays Jaclyn in “The White Lotus” Season 3, appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Wednesday and cleared up a rumor about who the killer is in Thailand.
“I just gotta debunk a theory out here guys. The monkeys did not do it,” the 49-year-old actress said.
But Jimmy Kimmel was disappointed hearing this from Monaghan.
“Aww, really? I was hoping it was the monkeys,” the host, 57, said with a laugh.
“Those monkeys got ahold of that gun and start firing. That would be fantastic!” Kimmel added.
“People have gone apes–t thinking that,” Monaghan said about the monkey theory. “No, everybody’s lost the point.”
Kimmel joked that the monkeys going on a killing spree would “be like the beginning of ‘The Planet of the Apes.’ That would be quite a crossover type thing.”
“Maybe we’re going there here, in this life, but not on the show,” Monaghan said.
Every season of “The White Lotus” has a whodunit murder mystery.
The first season of the show saw hotel guest Shane (Jake Lacy) stab manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) to death. In the second season, Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) falls to her death on a yacht after murdering a group of gays hired to kill her by her husband Greg (Jon Gries)
Season 3 opened with Belinda’s (Natasha Rothwell) son Zion (Nicholas Duvernay) fleeing a meditation session when he hears gunshots nearby. Zion jumps into a lake and sees a dead body floating nearby him.
The Thailand murder mystery is expected to be revealed during the Season 3 finale, which airs April 6.
During her appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel,” Monaghan was asked if she based Jaclyn on any of her real-life friends.
“No! And I do have friends saying like, ”Is that based one me?’ And it’s not based on anyone,’” she said.
“Again, I’ve been doing this for so long, I’ve met many versions of myself within this industry,” the “Mission: Impossible” star continued. “Male, female, egos, things like that. And I think that was what was really fun about creating the show.”
“Mike [White] has been in this industry so long too,” Monaghan said, “and it’s just sort of finding these types of qualities that we wanted to lean into that are really cliche and developing and fleshing out.”
Monaghan also defended Jaclyn’s decision to sleep with Valentin after trying to set him up with Laurie (Carrie Coon).
“The golden rule about actors, that you’ll hear every actor talk about, is you never judge your character,” she said. “You get behind them. You support them in one way or another.”
“The White Lotus” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max.