Sam Nivola Is Right Where He Wants to Be

Of the millions of fans eagerly awaiting each new episode of The White Lotus, Sam Nivola has been more invested than most. As Lochlan, the youngest member of the dysfunctional Ratliff family, the 21-year-old actor is at the center of one of this season’s most controversial storylines, resulting in a shocking revelation this past weekend after weeks of foreshadowing. Nivola, of course, knew what was coming, and he has been trying to face the onslaught of online conversation that comes with starring in one of the most dissected shows on television with a level head and a sense of remove. “I think I have a pretty relatively healthy relationship with social media,” he laughs. “People keep asking me, ‘What do you think of all these people seeing it and talking about you?’ I’ve been waiting as the show comes out because I’ve never had that experience.”

After this season, and especially this Sunday, which has produced a seemingly endless stream of commentary, it’s safe to say that Nivola will be very familiar with finding himself at the center of attention, even as he admits that Lochlan is not as “extravagant” of a character as his finance bro older brother Saxon, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, or his wine- and pill-addicted mother Victoria, played by Parker Posey. “I think he’s a really insecure character,” Nivola offers. As a senior in high school trying to decide on a college and a future, Lochlan is pulled in multiple directions by the rest of his family, including his father Timothy (Jason Isaacs) and older sister Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), each of them trying to turn him into a version of themselves. “He’s caught in a tug of war between his two older siblings, who both want him to adhere to their lifestyle,” he adds. “I’m stuck in the middle of picking one of those paths, but at the end of the day, I don’t really think that is actually what drives me. I think really the reason I am interacting with either of them is just for their attention and love. I think Lochlan just feels really lonely and will do whatever it takes to garner the affection of his family members.”

Mike White, the creator of The White Lotus, has been celebrated for his ruthless skewering of social dynamics, and the Ratliff family is a brilliant creation of his, with all five characters deepening over the course of the season away from the clichés they first appear to embody. Nivola, the son of actors Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola and an older brother to sister May, says he is thankful he was not able to pull from real-life experience for the dysfunctional Ratliffs, and worked with his costars to find a family chemistry that felt honest and lived-in. “We talked a lot about what the dynamic was growing up, where we probably grew up with a lot of nannies, Dad was probably at work all the time and Mom was probably high off her ass most of the time,” he explains. “I think that created a lot of distance in the family. I think when you’ve got lots and lots of money, it tends to create distances within families, so what’s interesting about putting this family in the context of a resort holiday is that you don’t leave. Everything is right here and the nature of it is to push people closer together. That just inevitably makes for some weird fucking dynamics because they don’t know how to interact as a normal family because they’re not used to it back home.”

Despite his healthy home life, Nivola is no stranger to dysfunctional families after starring last year as another youngest of three in The Perfect Couple, the hit Netflix miniseries following the fallout after the maid of honor is found dead at a Fourth of July wedding hosted by the outrageously wealthy Winburys. There, his parents were played by Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber, and Nivola said he built his character around being a coddled mama’s boy. The similarities between Lochlan and Will Winbury (as well as Heinrich Gladney from Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, Nivola’s feature debut) are enough that they can almost be seen as variations on a theme, something the young actor says has been an interesting development as he has built and shaped his career so far. “I think it’s nice to be able to have characters that are similar because you can build off them over the course of your different jobs,” he says. “But I think even if you have an identical character, you change one thing about the cocktail of things that creates a set, and then the character changes. The writing is different, the directing is different, your co-stars that you’re acting with are different, the setting is different, everything’s different.”

Another benefit Nivola has found in playing more unassuming characters is the opportunity to find the right balance with the absurdity that has coursed through many of his projects. “Comedy is not something that I studied or that I claim to know a lot about, but my understanding of it is that comedy becomes stronger with sincerity,” he explains. “What’s funny about my character in The Perfect Couple is that I’m really innocent and sincere and want to be a good guy, and I’m in a situation where it’s impossible to do so. That’s where the dramatic irony comes into play. I think the same is true with actually all the characters in The White Lotus, which is that the environment that they’re in is so ridiculous that the characters acting normal actually is funnier than if they were to meet the environment on its playing field. A bunch of rich people acting super crazy wouldn’t be as funny.”

In discussing his projects, it’s clear that Nivola has his eye on what’s happening behind the camera as well, and it’s no surprise that he fell in love with film years before he became an actor and that he currently runs a production company, Cold Worm Productions, with his friends Anthony Ertle and Teddy Ryan. “I’ve always been obsessed with movies,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to direct movies as well, secondarily to acting. As an actor, most of the year, you’re just sitting on your ass and I’m too driven, I need to be working. I’ve always written scripts and made short films from when I was really little. It was something I always wanted to do.” Lately, he’s become interested in producing as well, allowing him to foster a different aspect of his creative energy. “It’s so fulfilling and fun to not just write and direct your own things,” he says, “but also to produce, which normally can be thought of as a number-crunchy boring job, but it’s just so fulfilling to nurture other people’s ideas and help them grow.”

Even with his recent success, Nivola says his parents have helped make sure he is cognizant of the difficulties of the job. “It’s a hard life, the life of an actor, and you have to get really lucky, not once, not twice, but you got to get really lucky once a year in order to sustain it as a career where you can make money, support a family, and also not be bored and unhappy,” he says. Still, at this turning point in his career, he is ready to expand his talents in exciting new directions. “I feel like sometimes the best roles are the kind of roles that you can’t describe,” he responds when asked about future character choices. “I’d love to play some weird character-y role, but I guess it’s hard to say because the best characters are the ones that haven’t yet been written, so you can’t really describe them. As an actor, you take it one day at a time and you take the jobs that are offered to you.”

For the next two weeks, Nivola still has the final episodes of The White Lotus to look forward to, and he’s doing his best to maintain a comfortable distance from the online maelstrom. “You always want to be cautious about your optimism in terms of how a show is going to do so I wasn’t really anticipating anything crazy, just because that’s what you have to do for your psyche,” he laughs. “To a certain extent I do, but I also don’t really care because I think the most important thing is enjoying your time doing it and shooting it and doing the acting itself. And then also enjoying the show yourself, and I really enjoyed the show.” It’s clear that for Nivola, the joy is in the work itself, perhaps the healthiest approach one can take in this intense situation. “Everyone loves to say, ‘This show is going to change your life,’ and that still remains to be seen for me,” he adds. “Not in a bad way—I don’t really want my life to change. I really like my life and I’m happy with it as it is.”

The White Lotus continues on Sundays on HBO.