Filming ‘The White Lotus' terrified Sam Nivola more than once
As part of his first-ever (near) death scene — the result of Lochlan accidentally drinking a poisoned protein shake in the finale — Nivola shot a sequence in which the teen imagined himself drowning. It was filmed toward the end of the cast's lengthy stay in Thailand, when Nivola happened to have two weeks between call times. "It's always weird as an actor when you're not shooting every day. You can sort of psych yourself out. It's better when you're working constantly and you don't have the time to really get nervous or overthink things," he says. "I'm a very claustrophobic person, so I was just thinking about this thing, just freaking out for two weeks."
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Adding to the nervous anticipation, White filmed two versions of Lochlan's surreal white-light moment: the one viewers ultimately saw and one that involved Lochy emerging from a zipped body bag in the water. "I did it, and it was fine, but it was a full-ass day of being in this body bag with a can of air which, I'm sure, for lots of people who have their scuba license, is normal, but I do not, and that shit scares the fuck out of me," he says. "I had to learn how to clear the water out of my nose and everything, and do all this while blind underwater because I didn't have goggles on."
SEE The White Lotus star Sam Nivola talks Lochlan's latest desperate act, teases 'chaotic, complex, devastating' finale
An underwater speaker on a Bangkok soundstage allowed him to hear when "Action!" was called. "I'd take a big breath and then drop the can of air, and then unzip myself and climb out, and then I had to die in the water and start to float back down. But in order to float back down, you need to have no air in your lungs, because if you have air in your lungs, you float up, it makes you buoyant. So I had to time it perfectly so that I had little enough air in my lungs that I would start to float down and look dead, but enough air in my lungs to make it to the top and breathe without suffocating," he explains with another laugh. "So it was a delicate, delicate art that we mastered over the course of a day, and it was really fun in the end. I'm happy I did it, but it was so intense."
To prep for the emotional side of the sequence, Nivola watched interviews with people who've had near-death experiences or flatlined before having their heart restarted and studied "what you see and what you're thinking, and how it's kind of thrilling in a weird way, apparently," he says. "But at the end of the day, I was really trying to wrap my head around the line that Lochlan says, which is, 'I think I saw God.' It feels very important, because it's my character's last line, and obviously this season is about spirituality, and religion to a greater extent. Does that mean my character has changed and gone through some period of growth? Or does it mean he's sort of grasping at straws and trying to try on religion in his last moment in the show and that's still not the right thing for him?"
Stefano Delia/HBO
Nivola's claustrophobia extends to a fear of large crowds in places where he feels trapped — which made filming Episode 5 at a real, packed Full Moon Party on the island of Koh Phangan "terrifying," he admits.
"You have to take a boat to get [there], and then you can't leave until the boat goes home, which is like 2 in the morning or something," he says. "The boat that we took out had to turn back halfway through, because there was a big storm and it was so bumpy that we nearly capsized. And then we finally went back to the party, and it was so intense having to perform as an actor while you can't even hear anything, because there's like fucking house music throbbing in your eardrum at a million decibels, and there's just a million people that are high on God knows what, with their sweaty bodies slamming into you. But, of course, it was also incredibly fun and such a unique experience to shoot at something like that. ... After we finished the scene, we all just stayed there and partied and danced around for a while. It was an unforgettable experience, but it was also sort of terrifying."
While The White Lotus aired earlier this spring, Nivola was busy in Wilmington, N.C., filming the upcoming Bobby Farrelly-directed comedy Driver's Ed and didn't find himself out and about enough to be accosted by fans wanting to dissect scenes like Lochlan's drug-fueled yacht threesome with temptress Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) and Lochlan's finance bro brother, Saxon (). Now, though, he's been hearing the same thing again and again: "Probably five times a day, someone is like, 'I'm happy you didn't die!' My rehearsed answer is, 'Yeah, me, too!'" Nivola says.
Thanks to the success of the show, the son of actors Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer has now experienced another first: being offered roles in films without auditioning. He's also landed some theater auditions, which he hopes will soon pay off. "I really, really want to do a play," he says, adding that he's currently writing one with a pal. "[The White Lotus] is such a machine for catapulting people into a space where they are going to have opportunities to continue to work at the highest level, and I'm crossing my fingers that I'm an example of that because I love doing what I do, and to continue to get opportunities to do it is just like a dream come true. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world."
He'd like to balance more A-list productions that allow him to continue to learn opposite veterans he looks up to, such as his White Lotus parents Jason Isaacs and , with making low-budget films and black box theater with his friends.
"I'm so young that I feel like every day, I learn so much about everything, not just acting," he says. "I feel like I'm at the age where I'm just such a sponge for my life, and I'm just trying to soak it all in."
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Obviously, I'm not going to bring people who are cult-like believers, but I was very conscious of the tone to just be like, "What's going on," you know? As opposed to "You f******." So that was all choice, but I really think to answer your question, it was like, well, let's deal with this now and then we'll get into the other stuff. Marc Maron on HBO's 'Panicked.' Marc Maron on HBO's 'Panicked.' Karolina Wojtasik/HBO Do you think comics have a responsibility to address the current political situation? Or Trump or anything, considering the state of the country? No, no, absolutely not. And I don't think it's everyone's cup of tea. Look, comedy is a beautiful form where you and only you can decide what you want to do and dictate how you want do it and you have complete control and a lot of room to really decide who you want be up there. It's a beautiful thing. So no, only a few people can do it [political humor]. 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But I do think there is some fun poking to be had at people that are overly committed to very small things and that's what justifies their political existence. So I thought that was right for comedy. And I think that line, which I came up with like, two days before I shot the special, that we annoyed the average American into fascism, I was so happy I got that line. I think that says it all. And I think the way I ride the line with that stuff is that progressives and liberals can see themselves in what I'm saying and take themselves down a notch. I often think of the balance between how my blue-collar parents would react to modern, progressive politics, the sometimes policing of language, like what you were saying about using the R word. Well, yeah, but the point of that was it was never not allowed. And it remains now. 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Well, I think what the big loss is in the age of authoritarianist America is doubling down on intolerance. That becomes dangerous for people who are marginalized or vulnerable. The idea of like, shut up, suck it up thing. If that's how you're going to use your free speech and you know, "We don't have to put up with your sh** anymore." Then don't be on the base level in language. Democracy doesn't work without tolerance. Marc Maron on HBO's 'Panicked.' Marc Maron on HBO's 'Panicked.' Karolina Wojtasik/HBO In watching your special, even though I'm not overly political, I still feel very connected as an audience member. What is it about crafting jokes like this that gives you the freedom to go in any direction you need to go in? I feel like that was always the journey for me. I used to do a joke years ago that I loved about homophobia. That these guys who are just homophobic and anti-gay, and I think that one of the ways to solve that would be maybe all guys suggest, you have to get it in the ass once and it should be a thing that happens. Like a government office where [when] you turn 18, they knock on the door and your mom's like, "Honey, the man's here." Just so they can base their opinion on a reality. I mean, it's dramatic, and obviously there are non-penetrating people, but the idea was to, there is an inclusiveness to it. It's just a matter of having the guts to maintain my point of view at risk of possibly alienating or not being quite right with the language, with the idea of telling the old guy that, to turn a Nazi, I think that's relatable on either side. And it's an interesting take as a straight guy. But it is inclusive. What is really taking risks in comedy, which isn't just saying the R word or saying something so filthy that people are shocked. It's like, where's the menace? What's the balance of what you're capable of exploring? And when does a scenario enable you to do that? And it just sort of happened with that. Do you find that how you craft your material for a special has changed as you've gotten more of a name, more high profile, as you've gotten more attention over the years? I don't know if that has anything to do with name or profile, because I never really registered that as being a lot or enough. It's really more about me as a person. What have I learned? What matters? What doesn't matter? As I get older, what do I really give a sh** about? And as a comic, what can I do? What risks can I take? And I think over time, me talking about myself, probably kind of plate spinning and more neurotic. But as I get deeper into myself, I think that the last special, From Bleak to Dark, offered me the opportunity, tragically, to try to wrap my brain around grief and death and loss in a funny way. And I think working those muscles or figuring out how to do that has really opened up a whole other area for me to take comedic risks, which I think we see with the trauma bit in this one, and then revisiting grief at the end. But I also think my neurotic problems, or my patterns of behavior, at least have solutions now, so I can move through them differently and make them more relatable, because I used to assume that everybody when I was younger was angry and bitter like me, but they weren't. But I do think that everybody, more people certainly than we'd like to admit, have experienced trauma, has parents with dementia, has their own compulsive problems. So to figure out a way to kind of make that accessible is just part of my personal growth more than my stature as a comic. How does anxiety impact your own creativity? I think I explore it pretty thoroughly in this special. I did the thing about the cat and the Prozac, right? You make decisions once you get to know yourself well enough around what you can put up with, whether you should put up with it or not, whether it is who you are or whether it is a symptom of something and is it something you want to treat? I think that I've dealt with that a bit. I think a lot of my creativity comes out of things that make me want some combination of things that make me afraid on an existential level, but also habits and compulsions that I've sort of grown to rely on to relieve that stuff. So it's all a big combination of how do you make yourself existentially comfortable either innately or through behavior. And I don't think that all my comedy is fed by anxiety because there is this level of me—I was writing about this yesterday—there's a part of me that remains unchanged. And I think it's a very young part of me and it's something that is intrinsically mine and that I'm reluctant to share in some ways, but I have been able to access it comedically. Like I have a hard time with it intimately, with individuals, but for some reason in a room full of strangers, I'll take those risks. And I think that there's something deeper than just anxieties. I think I speak from that place with the trauma bit and certainly with the grief stuff at the end. I think there's a part of me that's a little softer and a little more vulnerable and fragile underneath all the noise, which ranges from minor anxiety to rage. Actor/comedian Marc Maron speaks onstage at WTF with Marc Maron - LIVE Comedy Podcast during the 2012 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival on March 11, 2012 in Austin, Texas. Actor/comedian Marc Maron speaks onstage at WTF with Marc Maron - LIVE Comedy Podcast during the 2012 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival on March 11, 2012 in Austin, Texas. Cassie Wright/WireImage Your podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, really changed the game in the podcast space. It not only reignited your career, but it became a template for what was possible with podcasts. So, what do you think is the current state of podcasts? Well, I mean, I've never been a careerist person. I didn't have the foresight or the discipline to really think of career in general. I'm not a career thinker. I wanted to be a comic. And I thought that you get to a certain place where things come along with that. But that was the only real thing. And that really wasn't working out by the time I started. I mean, I was working, I was known, but it wasn't a career. So the career kind of happened, I guess. Is fortuitously the word? Around the cosmic timing of doing the podcast and having the chops and whatever particular innate talent it is to resonate on that type of microphone. But I mean, it feels like the state of podcast now is, I have a lot of thoughts on it. At the beginning, it was sort of the Wild West, and it was an open form. It was an open format. You could do whatever you wanted, not unlike comedy, but with more production, especially when it was all just audio. And I think at the beginning, there was a sort of movement where it was kind of populous in that everyone thought they could do it. And it's the same with comedy now. And now, a lot of people do it for a lot of different reasons. Some people are doing it just because their brand will enable them to have another cash flow, by capitalizing on who they are, whether they're good at it or not. But ultimately, it's created a lot of yammering and once everyone went to video and once old school mainstream show business started to collapse in on itself, people were really able through bubbles and tribalization, able to build their own show business empires. And I think podcasting facilitated that and that is good. I think that in another way, podcasting helped people get their voices out there and niche markets and really do interesting stuff, but also lowered the bar for entertainment in general. I think that you have as much, if not more, unique and interesting content with interesting personalities and talent, but then you have a much larger portion of two to three white guys sitting in front of microphones talking about the last time they sh** their pants as adults. So you have this large contingency of like afternoon drive time radio that seems to speak to a lot of it, which I think lowers the bar and then you do have other stuff, but I think it opened the doors to people having more control of the type of show business they wanted to do. And I think it brought a lot of people that may not have thought that they had a profound amount of talent, but at the very least could sit and talk to other people. I can't tell you whether it's good or bad. There's a lot both and probably more bad than good. So then what do you say to that young comic who comes up to you and wants to start a podcast? What advice do you give them? Well, that timing is great. And that you're going to be up against a lot. I am too old to know what it really takes, and I've never been a guy who produces content for content's sake. We live in sort of a post-publicity world, in terms of other ways of tried-and-true ways of getting you and your being and brand out there. And it's all on you. So if you're going to do it, it seems that I wouldn't want to do it now. To what you have to do to sort of surface is a full-time job you have before you even get to the podcast. In terms of social media, in terms of creating content that grabs people enough to bring them to you. And I think what we lose in that, again, is lowering the bar of what these art forms were or what these broadcast forms were, because of this need, this desperate need to somehow grab people's attention and hold it for long enough, to keep it for a long enough for you to turn a buck out of it. So I would say go ahead, I guess, do what you can, but it's not the world I grew up in. And it's not the world where people spend a lot of time trying to create interesting and provocative content or sort of hyper-personalized and well-articulated, comedic voices. I mean, everyone's chasing whatever their freedom of speech may be. It's all now kind of boxed in by social media platform expectations. So how free are you? What are you doing there?
