From Lorazepam abuse to brotherly love banned in at least 48 states, this weekend’s season finale of The White Lotus is probably not one to watch with your parents. An Ohio woman has no choice: her dad is on the other side of the screen.
Kit Yoon lives in the Columbus area; she calls Bexley home and owns a well-known acupuncture business in Clintonville. Her father, Suthichai Yoon, lives in Thailand and stars as the Buddhist monk with whom Sam Nivola (Lochlan Ratliff) and Sarah Catherine Hook (Piper “Piper, No!” Ratliff) were seen in last week’s episode meditating. The brilliance of Luang Por Teera (Kit’s father’s character) is the primary reason Piper dragged the Ratliff family to Thailand.
“He’s well-read [and] a wise man, for sure,” Kit told CityBeat, laughing. “But it’s funny because people come up to me and tell me how much they love what my dad has to say and, ‘He’s so spiritual!’ Yes, he’s acting! That is his role. He was given a script and did a good job delivering the script. He’s not a monk himself, although he’s always wanted to be one. So the joke in the family is, ‘Oh, you got your wish and you got paid for it.”
He’s definitely no movie star in the eyes of his family. But he does carry some major clout: he is an anchor of the Thai PBS news show and was once the CEO of one of Thailand’s largest media companies.
“I’m so grateful that his role is neutral,” Kit said. “It’s probably the only positive thing in the series. He’s bringing everybody back to the center. In real life, he’s dad. He’s kind of boring, right?”
The way he got the job was unremarkable as well, but also all in the family.
“My brother is actually the reason my dad is in The White Lotus,” she said. “[Prabda] is an award-winning writer and he has his own publishing company. Currently, he’s directing and writing for Netflix Thailand. Thailand’s pretty small. The film industry is small. So [Prabda] knew the Thai scouting agent for The White Lotus. And I think it was probably a simple conversation, like, ‘Yeah, we’re looking for a monk who can do this role.’”
Prabda had an idea. And called his dad.
“My dad has been a journalist all his life,” Kit said, adding he had never acted before. “He speaks perfect English. He has a bald head. It would just be super easy. My dad auditioned and got the role. My brother was in [one] scene with him for the first like 5 seconds. So they got to share that and have some good memories.”
The memories, for Kit and Prabda, began in the 1970s when they grew up in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. When they were old enough for high school, Kit and Prabda packed their bags.
“A pretty common way to show love in our culture is to give the kids the best education possible,” Kit said. “So my brother and I, in 1988, came to the U.S.”
Kit eventually found her way to central Ohio when her husband took a job as a primary care sports medicine physician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Prabda, Kit’s brother, stayed in the U.S. until the early 2000s.
“Eventually, he went back to Thailand to satisfy the conscription because we still have that for military duties,” Kit said. “He’s been there ever since.”
For Kit, one scene involving her father stands out, but she remains humble about his spotlight. Instead of touting her dad’s work, she highlighted a performance by Jason Isaacs (Timothy Ratliff), whose character was contemplating taking his own life over money laundering charges, when he asked the monk: “What do you think happens when we die?” The answer: “No more separated. No more suffering. One consciousness. Death is a happy return. Like coming home.”
Kit said this moment serves as a profound reminder: you can’t outrun pain — a reflection of the core Buddhist teaching that life involves suffering, but there is a path to end it.
“I don’t think [Isaacs] even said very much,” she said, praising his work. “He sort of received it and it was a light bulb moment for him. We have this aversion to pain, even though it is part of life. It’s hard to remember because when you feel pain, you want to instantly seek some sort of pleasure to get rid of the pain. But is it an authentic pleasure? Is it drugs, sex, alcohol, money or greed? It’s always going to be there…if you’re chasing something that will give you more pain.”
If her theology sounds well-established, that’s because it is. Kit has an acute understanding of holistic acupuncture and overall well-being. In her profession, as she puts it on her website, she integrates “the wisdom of Chinese medicine with coaching” to help women embrace confidence and feel at ease in their own skin.
“People will come up to me and say, ‘Oh my gosh, I love seeing your dad! What he said sounds like what you say to me all the time,” she said.
And a lot of people are seeing him. This season of The White Lotus broke a new show record, drawing in 4.2 million viewers for a single episode, a rating that isn’t typically seen in today’s fractured media landscape. And who knows what the viewership will look like for Sunday’s highly-anticipated 90-minute season finale?
“I was happy for him because he’s still working a lot, but this is a fun interruption,” she said. “And to have this little blurb in his life, on his resumé for crying out loud, is probably surprising, unexpected and totally fun.”
The White Lotus airs on HBO and streams on Max at 9 p.m. this Sunday.
This article appears in Apr 2-8, 2025.