Sam Nivola and Cooper Koch on Nepo Babies, Incest and the White Lotus

Sam Nivola and Cooper Koch played both brothers in complicated fraternal relationships last year. Nivola, as Lochlan Ratliff on ‘The White Lotus’, longed for the impressions of older brothers and sister Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), but ended up in an intoxicated tryst with him. Koch, as Erik Menendez on ‘Samples: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’, had to deliver a prismatic performance, which highlighted all ways those commentators and intimates saw the case of two brothers accused and later convicted of killing their parents. Both actors also had to deliver a showpiece moments: Nivola in the seasonal near-death experience of Lochlan and Koch in an episode with one take in which Erik explains his lawyer within the household of Mendez.

Sam Nivola: This is our first time you meet.

Cooper Koch: But I have the feeling that we know each other – you are a bit my brother.

Nivola: We should have been in each other’s shows.

Koch: It should have just been us. So what’s the start for you? Where did it all start?

Nivola: I am from Brooklyn, New York. I grew up with two parents who were both actors – [Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer].

Koch: OK.

Nivola: Do you have parents in the industry?

Koch: I don’t have an actor parents, but my grandfather was a producer.

Nivola: I constantly get the question.

Koch: Nepo baby.

Nivola: Yes, nepo honey. My whole thing was that my parents really didn’t want me to become an actor, what I get completely – I don’t know if I would like my child to become an actor. It is a really mental difficult career to be in. And even if I had no success, I would like to do it. But they really didn’t want me to do it.

Koch: And then of course you are: “Sorry, I do it, guys.”

Nivola: Have you done a lot of theater in high school?

Koch: Since I was 5 years old. We had two musicals a year. I see my life as a constant. You start a show and you have the rehearsals. And then you do the show, and it’s over, and what’s the next one? And then you go again.

What did you do before you got that first job? Have you done a theater?

Nivola: I did it. I did all the school games that I could do. I was just really busy watching films. I initially received a subscription to the criterion channel to impress this girl I was in it for years. She is like: “I am wearing berets, and I am really in France at the moment.” And I had something like: “Ok, I can find out.”

And then I had a period of ultimate pretension and I fell in love with Cinema: that audition was for “White Noise”. [I said]”This is an opportunity to be on the set of one of the greatest directors of all time,” but my parents really wanted me to go to university, what I understand.

Koch: Did you not go to university?

Nivola: I went to a semester to the university.

Koch: I think that’s great. How did you land this crazy part that …

Nivola: … changed my life? I fear that it will not be so interesting if you think it is, because it is literal, has done a self -tape, has done a callback. My callback was with Mike [White]. The only thing that was different is that his writing is simply incredibly natural and real. Not that other writing that I have worked with in the past is not, but there is something that I specifically like about the way he writes that it made, so that I didn’t have to do work to prepare for the audition.

What about your audition process? What is the atmosphere of Ryan Murphy?

Koch: We didn’t really know he would be there. They didn’t tell us. We just thought it would cast directors. But then he just rolls in the room. He had something like: “How much do you know?” And I had something like: “I know everything.”

Nivola: Referring to the rules?

Koch: No, referring to the story. We sat down and had this great conversation about this. It really calmed down the nerves. We went upstairs and did the callback for two hours. We have done three scenes and in between conversations. It was very collaborative – one of the best audition experiences I have ever had.

Nivola: ‘What do you know? “ That’s great. You had something like “everything.”

Koch: “I know everything!” Because I have been to this story for so long. My second audition ever was for the “Law & Order” series about them in 2017. And then I also had an audition for the Lifetime film that they did the same year. I just felt this insane cosmic thing that looked like: “I have to play this part.” And this immense empathy. There are all these weird parallels. We both went to Calabasas High School.

Nivola: Holy Shit.

Koch: Yes. So it’s a long drive. And I still give both so deep around. They will go conditionally in June; That looks very positive.

Nivola: Have you watched tons of videos to try to occur the way he speaks and the way he walks? What level of imitation were you doing? A part of what I like about the show is that there is a lot of ambiguity, and so you have to make some hard and fast choices.

Koch: I listened to him every night before I went to bed. I had it in the car when I drove. I really wanted to get his voice and way, because they all further supported that he was sexually abused by his father. I know there are so many perspectives, but I always wanted the audience to sympathize with him.

Nivola: I have to ask you about the episode of one take. How much Takes have you done?

Koch: I had it for eight months, so I read it every day, and I would visualize what he said and make those images so clear so that when we started doing it, it would affect me emotionally. We did eight Takes, four on the first day, four on the second day, and they chose the very last one.

Nivola: This was at the end of the shoot?

Koch: Yes – I had a long time with it, and it was the backbone of my entire character. That was my background story; I didn’t have to write. They wrote it for me.

Let me turn it on again. How did you bring down your relationship? You and Patrick had such an interesting dichotomy.

Nivola: We talked a lot about it. Part of the nature of that show that makes it such a dream as an actor is that you live with the people who are your family in the show, and you spend all your time with them. They have closed the hotels, so there is no one else to distract you. The time difference with New York was 12 hours, so I hardly had any contact with someone.

Koch: You are really in that bubble.

Nivola: And you have your character in many ways, because you sleep in the same bed. We have spoken a lot with Mike about the brothers and sisters, so that the dynamics of the two to the opposite ends of this spectrum were received of morality. I think something we both have to deal with, many people are like: “Your character is a kind of crawl.”

Koch: It’s so funny. I didn’t feel that way at all. In the end, when you are yours: “I am a folk fun, I just want to make everyone happy, I am in a family of narcissists,” I had something like that “Yes. That’s what this is. “What do people say?

Nivola: Well, they just say that he is a kind of sexual abnormality. In your case, let’s also say that they were killers who kill blood in cooling and there was no reason for it. Or let’s say that my character is a pervert. You still have to find a way as an actor to love your character. I am really protective about my characters.

Koch: As you should. That’s the only way.

Nivola: You can see, see how much you love Erik, and that is a wonderful thing.

Koch: So to bring it to death, how was that like?

Nivola: It was really emotional. Before I went to Thailand, I would speak very contemptuously about actors who came back from a shoot and if: “I really lost myself in the character.” “Fuck you!” But when I was there, I thought, “I get it now.” I felt that Jason Isaacs was my father, who brought such a raw reality into that scene: I am right now, and I die.

Koch: I really thought you were gone.

Nivola: I did it too.

Production: Bauie+Rad; Production design: Francisco Vargas