Alexander Ludwig Was Frustrated by a Lack of Good Roles. Then Mike White Called

It’s been more than a decade since Alexander Ludwig‘s breakout role in 2012’s The Hunger Games, but “only just now am I really feeling this kind of tectonic shift,” he says of his career.

When The Hollywood Reporter caught up with the 34-year-old actor on a July afternoon over Zoom, he was enjoying a small break during filming The White Lotus season four. While Ludwig remains tight-lipped on any plot details for Mike White’s hit anthology series, he was happy to speak (at length) about how his casting came about.

“The announcement changed my life,” he confesses from his place in France, where he’s staying with his wife and two children while working on the HBO series. “It’s one of those things where it was bigger than The Hunger Games, which is so crazy.”

However, it was quite the journey before that trajectory-changing call came in. Ludwig was feeling frustrated by the lack of projects coming his way. “I was like, ‘Where are all the projects? Where is all the good stuff? Where’s the stuff that I want to be a part of, that I want to fight for?’ I just couldn’t find anything,” the Vikings alum recalls.

Instead of just sitting around feeling stagnant, Ludwig decided to pivot behind the camera for a film he had been trying to get made for years. He says, “By pure stars aligning and a little help from my producing partner,” who was his mother, Sharlene Ludwig, they were able to find a financier to back his directorial debut, Billings.

After starting the shoot with a cast that includes Carla Gugino, Taylor Hickson and James Jordan, in addition to himself, his phone rang. But it wasn’t the call you’re thinking about just yet.

“I get a call from a big studio about potentially starring in a massive franchise and met with the director and things were looking great,” Ludwig recalls. “And I was like, ‘Holy shit, I just can’t believe what’s happening right now.’” He declines to disclose the project as the role ultimately went to another actor.

But the same week, his phone rang again. Only this time, the person said, “Mike White wants to meet you.” Just as Ludwig began to jump in excitement over the opportunity to audition for The White Lotus, he quickly realized, “I’m not free. I’m working. I’m directing this thing. I’m busy all the time.”

While White Lotus is not known for giving actors big paydays, it’s one of the most sought-after roles in Hollywood, a part that brings cachet and Emmy buzz for many of its castmembers. “Everybody in the business watches it,” Ludwig says. He wanted it, badly.

It was also clear White knew what he wanted, as he agreed to work around Ludwig’s schedule for the audition. So after essentially 24 hours of chaos, which included a Billings night shoot, a three-scene audition with White — and his cousin’s wedding hours away from the Billings set (“Literally passed out at dinner and the groom was like, ‘You can go home now,’” he quips with a laugh), Ludwig learned a short time later that he landed the White Lotus role.

“We were all in the car, and my mom and my manager knew, but I didn’t know. And they told me when I was driving them to dinner, and I’ll say it was very emotional,” he recalls of the moment.

While he’s currently locked in on his mysterious role in The White Lotus‘ fourth season — which he teases is going to be “insane and unbelievable” — he’s also readying for the launch of Netflix’s Unabomber, which released Friday.

“I love doing these deep-dive explorations into people and psychology and just what makes people do certain things and why. And that’s kind of what this film is,” he says of the unique retelling of the Unabomber case, which jumps between Ted Kaczynski’s (played by Jacob Tremblay) adolescence and the FBI’s manhunt for the domestic terrorist in the 1990s. “It’s a really introspective look at why. What is it that makes somebody do something like this?”

Below, Ludwig opens up about playing fictional FBI agent Leo Driver in Netflix’s Unabomber, opposite Shailene Woodley; his directorial debut, Billings; his reaction to the new Hunger Games film; if he’ll ever return to music and more.

Going back to the beginning, what made you first want to pursue a career as an actor?

Ever since I was a kid, I was the one running around with a video camera and making bad films with my friends and family, and I always just wanted to perform. And my mom actually used to be an actor. She’s super talented and she stopped because she wanted to do the hardest job in the world, which is being a stay-at-home mom and raising four kids. And she was my first fan and, still to this day, my biggest. … Without telling her, I stole her phone when I was nine and actually called her old agent and asked for a meeting. She was like, “Listen, if this nine-year-old kid is willing to give me a call, maybe I should meet him.” And I went out for my first commercial, which was this Harry Potter toy commercial, and I booked it. So I obviously thought I was God’s gift to acting. (Laughs).

And so you’re humbled very quickly after that and you realize just how much work you really have to put in to have any sort of success in this business where the likelihood of success in general is basically one percent, if that. But I fervently believe that in anything in life, if you’re doing something that truly brings you joy, the universe will reward you.

You’ve definitely had a fruitful career, including your new film, Unabomber. Given that the movie features two timelines, how did you approach your character Leo in the investigation storyline, especially since he’s technically a fictional person?

Most of these characters, not all of them, [are] kind of a combination of many people who worked on this case for a really, really long time. And my character was one of those. …. Short of already watching every documentary on the Unabomber, what really excited me was actually the pairing of Shailene and I, and just watching this woman fervently fight a battle to unearth the things that a lot of people are just pushing away and things that, when looked at with a clear head, very quickly will point you in the right direction.

I don’t know how a lot of these amazing men and women that do what they do actually survive this lifestyle because it’s like you’ve been looking for this buried piece of treasure for years of your life and you’ve still been unable to find it and then you have the pressure of delivering. So there’s this really great relationship between Shailene’s character and mine where there’s a mutual respect in the fact that they work in the same sort of field, but there’s a huge lack of respect in the fact that they both believe different things will lead to different places and reluctantly they’re partnered together.

With your character being set in the 1990s investigation timeline, how much of the script did you read on Kaczynski’s adolescence? Or did you aim to stay focused on just your storyline?

I read it simply because when you’re deciding whether or not to do a project, I want to make sure it’s going to be a film that I’m going to watch or that I’m at least interested in. So I did read it, but only once. And it wasn’t because I felt like it would influence my character in any way. I was just focusing on the things that I needed to focus on to deliver what I wanted to.

But I did think that that was super interesting jumping back and forth, and that’s what makes this different. It’s really interesting watching the creation of this very complex human being, and at the same time watching closer to modern-day about how these people are going about finding him.

You’re also currently filming The White Lotus. How difficult is it for you to keep such a highly anticipated show a secret?

It’s crazy because we’re calling it The White Lotus effect. I was with Clooney the other day at this thing, and instantly when that person — whether it’s George Clooney or it’s Demi Moore or whoever — hears about this, everyone wants to know, and they’re so excited to talk about it because they’re fans. And it’s just things like that; it’s pretty crazy. I mean, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel great. It does feel great. And then one thing I constantly remind everybody too is just remember, enjoy the moment, but this isn’t real life. This is not what an actor gets to do normally, so I’m definitely enjoying it for all it’s worth.

Sunrise on the Reaping also releases later this year, so given that the original film was your breakout moment with your role as Cato, what’s your reaction to seeing the franchise continue more than a decade later?

I’m so happy for everybody, and I’ve learned a lot since I was that young boy in The Hunger Games. I’m forever grateful for that movie for so many different reasons. I’m forever grateful to [director] Gary Ross for humanizing Cato at the end of that film. And I ran into Rachel Zegler (who starred in 2023’s The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) when we were in Austin, and it’s hysterical — we never met before, and we gave each other a big hug. I’m stoked for these people and for the franchise to continue to live on, because I think it’s an amazing one. If they came up and ever needed anything, I would have so much I want to share with them too.

Having recently stepped into the director’s chair for the first time with Billings (which follows a young girl battling cystic fibrosis whose brother is forced to rob pharmacies to obtain life-sustaining medication) what sparked your interest to pivot to directing?

What made me want to do it is that I wrote something that I truly believed nobody could tell as truthfully as I could. That was that. And my whole thing with this film was, we had an amazing director of photography, Pawel Edelman. He was nominated for an Oscar for The Pianist. And I told Pawel, “Dude, I think I’m going to be your favorite director ever because we’re going to show up every day, and this is a collaborative experience. You tell me what you want to shoot. I’m going to work on making sure that we are telling this story and we have to shoot this script, and as long as we do that, we’re going to make a great film.” And it was one of the most creatively fulfilling experiences I’ve ever had in my life. And the subject matter is something that’s very deeply important to me.

You’ve also dabbled in music, releasing your debut album, Highway 99, in 2022. While your focus is more on acting at the moment, do you see yourself returning in the future?

Music has always been such a huge part of me, and writing music is such a big part of my life. So when I had time, I was in Nashville writing, and pretty organically, that all ended up coming to be. I met somebody on a plane who played for one of my favorite country artists, and now that artist is a friend of mine, and I was signed with the same label, and it was crazy. It all kind of happened just so perfectly, just unplanned in that way. But would I do more? Totally. I’m absolutely going to do more, but I got to be honest, I was a little disillusioned by the business as a whole. And not that I have a problem. I have so many friends in that business and I love it, but you have to love something so much in these businesses that you’re willing to go through all the shit that is not that business to be able to do that.

I think actually Taylor Swift talked about that: to be able to have that hour and a half on stage, you have to be willing to go through all of that. And as much as I love that, I had done three shows and I was like, I want to have a family. I want to be a good father. And I’ve got this thing right now that was my first love: acting, and it’s really working right now, and I owe it to myself to really double down.

As audiences get to know you more through your new projects, what’s something they may be surprised to know about you?

I used to compete in big mountain and freestyle skiing in Canada, so that’s something that I loved to do and I still love to do when I’m not working. I skydive. Again, don’t do that when I’m working or even off work now because my manager gets very angry at me. But I love to surf. I’m halfway through my pilot’s license. I mean, there’s a bunch of stuff. To me, the thing that I love that I would say the most is I’m just very adventurous. I went on a 50-mile hike along this thing called the West Coast Trail that I do with my mom and my sisters and my cousins, and that was one of the greatest experiences of my life.