Heather Graham, 56, shows off her INCREDIBLE physique in a skimpy bikini ahead of White Lotus debut

Created by Mike White, The White Lotus is an anthology series with a new storyline that .

Season four would have seen Carter, 59, join an all-star cast including Graham, Sandra Bernhard, Vincent Cassel, and Rosie Perez.

The season was already days into filming when HBO announced in May that Carter had exited the project over creative concerns involving her role. 

'With filming just underway on season four of The White Lotus, it had become apparent that the character which Mike White created for Helena Bonham Carter did not align once on set,' the network revealed to TMZ.

'The role has subsequently been rethought, is being rewritten and will be recast in the coming weeks,' continued the premium cable broadcaster.

After a brief whirlwind of conjecture about who the replacement would be, it was announced that Dern had been enlisted to leap into the breach.

She enjoys a longstanding professional bond with White, with whom she co-created the critically acclaimed HBO series Enlightened, which ran from 2011 to 2013.

Dern won a Golden Globe for her starring role on Enlightened as a woman attempting to pick up the pieces of her life after a nervous breakdown.

White scored a hit with The White Lotus, which revolves around the exploits of the guests and staff at a different location of the titular hotel chain every season.

Originally, the through-line was the Jennifer Coolidge character Tanya McQuoid, a daffy rich older lady who led the first two seasons while the rest of the cast changed.

The buzzy third season went viral for the incest sex scene between brothers played by 'nepo baby' heartthrobs Patrick Schwarzenegger and Sam Nivola, as well as for the rumors of a feud between co-stars Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood.

While the first three seasons were set in Hawaii, Sicily and Thailand, the fourth will unfold mainly on the French Riviera and partly in Paris.

The storyline will center on the Cannes Film Festival, peopled by a cast including Hollywood names like Kumail Nanjiani, Ari Graynor, Chloe Bennet, Max Greenfield and AJ Michalka, as well as Australian unknown Caleb Jonte Edwards.

European talent have been enlisted to add a touch of authenticity to the setting, such as Corentin Fila, Laura Smet and Nadia Tereszkiewicz from France, Frida Gustavsson from Sweden and Tobias Santelmann from Norway.

It has emerged that the real-life Airelles Château de la Messardière in Saint-Tropez will be a filming location for the fictional White Lotus du Cap, while the Hôtel Martinez will play both the White Lotus du Cap and the White Lotus Cannes.

The name of the White Lotus du Cap is a playful nod to the world-famous Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, an A-list nexus during the Cannes Film Festival.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton notoriously carried on a torrid love affair there while married to other people, then returned there for their own honeymoon.