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Miloš Biković was supposed to star in a new season of HBO’s hit TV drama The White Lotus. But that was before the Serb actor’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine sparked an international outcry over his casting.
“We have decided to part ways with Miloš Biković and the role will be recast,” an HBO spokesperson said in a statement to POLITICO late Saturday, giving no further details. Biković called the decision “a disturbing precedent.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry publicly slammed HBO last month for casting Biković for the next season of The White Lotus — a dark comedy drama about class inequality told through stories of wealthy guests of a White Lotus resort. Filming starts in February.
“HBO, is it all right for you to work with a person who supports genocide & violates international law?” Ukraine’s foreign ministry asked in a January 24 post on X.
Biković on Saturday charged that “a targeted information campaign” was being waged against him. “External circumstances are beginning to influence creative decisions, which create a disturbing precedent that displaces the essence of creative freedom,” he said in a post on Facebook.
The actor said his participation in The White Lotus “became impossible for reasons beyond creativity, since I am not ready to change my principles,” according to the post.
Biković, who has Russian citizenship, rose to fame in Russia. In interviews with Russian media and YouTube bloggers, he has supported Russian President Vladimir Putin’s occupation of Crimea and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In 2018, Biković starred in a movie filmed in Russian-occupied Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula under international sanctions since the Kremlin’s illegal annexation in 2014.
“My attitude towards Russia does not change depending on the amount of Russophobia and hysteria against Russia. My attitude towards Russia is not based on immediate political events, but rather on a cultural, spiritual level,” Biković said in 2022.
