How Mike White’s Incessant Text Messages Got Him Cast on ‘Survivor 50’

Mike White’s unexpected return to Survivor was the result of years of begging from The White Lotus creator.

White, 54, was announced as a cast member on the upcoming 50th season of Survivor on Wednesday, May 28. He previously became a fan favorite on Survivor: David vs. Goliath in 2018. 

“Mike, after he finished playing, said, ‘I want to play again,’ and that was before White Lotus,” Survivor host Jeff Probst said Wednesday on CBS Sunday Morning. “Then White Lotus hit and I thought, ‘Well, he’ll never play again.’ But he kept texting and saying, ‘Look, I’m serious, if you ever do anything where you have returning players, I want to play again.’”

Probst, 63, added, “So we’re happy to have Mike back.”

‘Survivor’ Winners Through the Years: Where Are They Now?

White was the runner-up on Survivor: David vs. Goliath, which aired less than three years before the premiere of The White Lotus in 2021.  (At the time, he was most known for appearing in School of Rock as Ned Schneebly. He also wrote the 2003 movie starring Jack Black.) The HBO drama has gone on to air two additional seasons, airing in 2022 and 2025. 

The 50th season of Survivor, which is scheduled to air in spring 2026, will feature a cast of returning Survivor legends and two mystery players from the upcoming season 49, which premieres this fall. 

“Casting Survivor 50 was kind of like casting the ultimate, all-time movie,” Probst explained. “And you think about all the actors that are alive today that you could put in that movie, but there’s only so many roles. We wanted 50 to be a little taste of everything … we wanted to taste every flavor, every type of personality, all the eras.”

Probst added, “We went from 200 [names] on a list, to 100 to 80 to 50. Then those last 26, they were brutal cuts.”

In addition to White, the season 50 cast includes Survivor legend Cirie Fields, season 1’s Jenna, season 2’s Colby, season 10’s Stephenie, season 13’s Ozzy, season 18’s Coach, season 32’s Aubry, season 35’s Chrissy, season 37’s Christian and Angelina, season 38’s Rick, season 42’s Jonathan, season 45’s Dee and Emily, season 46’s Q, Tiffany and Charlie, season 47’s Genevieve and season 48’s Kamilla, Kyle and Joe.

‘Survivor’ Rules and Regulations: What the Cast Can Bring, Wear and More

Season 50 is scheduled to film in Fiji in early June and will feature the first cast of returning players since season 40 in 2020.

Last year, Probst was asked about the possibility of White returning to the franchise as a producer. 

“That’s not completely out of the question,” Probst said in a September 2024 episode of the “On Fire With Jeff Probst” podcast.

Probst added, “If after Mike White completes what we all hope will be a decades-long run of The White Lotus and he said, ‘Hey, Probst, I’d be interested in being a producer on the show,’ and we happened to have a producing slot that we were looking to fill and there wasn’t anybody already in our producing ranks who was in line — which is also very unlikely that that would happen — then in that specific situation, who knows? Mike White could join the producing ranks of Survivor.”