The White Lotus star says his DMs were flooded with ‘thirsty older men’ after incest scene
Sam Nivola says his DMs were ‘flooded’ with older men after The White Lotus. (HBO)
Sam Nivola, the 21-year-old breakout star of this year’s third season of The White Lotus, has reflected on becoming an improbable sex symbol.
Nivola played the unassuming ingénue Lochlan Ratliff in The White Lotus, the youngest of the family’s three children. Yet his naivety and eagerness to impress his older brother Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) led him to the season’s most outrageous storyline: incest.
The midway point of season three saw the brothers kiss as part of a drunken dare, before they wound up in bed next to one another, with Lochlan giving his brother a hand job.
Unsurprisingly, it made quite a few headlines at the time, and made Sam Nivola a star on the rise.
“When The White Lotus was at its peak, I literally couldn’t walk down the street in Brooklyn – my hometown – without being swarmed,” he recently told Variety.
Yet it wasn’t just in-person attention he received, either: Nivola said that his direct messages on social media were “flooded with thirsty older men” following the jaw-dropping incest scenes.
Despite all the love – if you can call it that – Nivola was left with a sense of unease as his character was dubbed a “freak”. As a by-product, Nivola too was called a “creep” and a “sicko”.
“It was at times painful. It’s hard when people view your character as a monster or pervert or freak,” Nivola admitted.
“It was hard feeling like people had lost sympathy for this guy that I lived inside. I got a little defensive.
“You have to love your character, otherwise you’re f**ked. My character jerked off Patrick. I don’t like that. It’s a bad thing he did. But I try not to pass judgment.”
His The White Lotus gig was undeniably the biggest of his career at the time, and though it’s come with blessings – he’s just signed up to appear alongside Connie Britton in Hulu mystery comedy Phony – there has been a down side, too.
He said that he has since received an abundance of offers to play “socially awkward, virginal kids who are a little weird” and worries that the role may come to define him.
“I’m starting to feel a little boxed in by the characters I’ve played in my career. But I’m also finally getting offers to do things where I’m a little more grown up. Hopefully the next one will be something a little different,” he shared.
The White Lotus is streaming on HBO and NOW.
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