The White Lotus star Sam Nivola also has a very famous parent
You'll know their face.
The White Lotus has proven itself to be a great platform for young actors – and one of its budding stars has a very famous British parent.
A satirical black comedy, The White Lotus follows the exploits of rich guests who turn up at the titular luxury hotel resort, pulling back the curtain on their seedy private lives.
An anthological series, each season introduces an entirely new cast of super rich and super scandalous characters who come to stay at the White Lotus.
Which means it’s proven to be a great platform for young actors trying to make their break in a major American TV production – one of them being Stockport actress Aimee Lou Wood.
Another young face making himself known to audiences at this early stage in his career is Sam Nivola, who plays Lochlan Ratliff on the show.
Lochlan is one of the show’s main characters for season three, alongside esteemed actors such as Jason Isaacs, Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, and Leslie Bibb.
Emily Mortimer shares Sam with husband Alessandro Nivola (Picture: Getty Images)But as well as rubbing shoulders with the famous cast, Sam also has a famous parent – he was also born in a London hospital and was raised in Notting Hill, despite his American nationality.
Sam’s famous mum is actress and filmmaker Emily Mortimer – Emily shares her son with husband Alessandro Nivola, and gave birth to Sam in 2003, when she was 32 years old.
Emily is a star of both the big and small screens, with her career having lasted more than 30 years since her 1994 debut on comedy drama Under the Hammer.
Sam (right) plays Lochlan Ratliff in the American series (Picture: HBO) (Picture: Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP/Getty)Her biggest TV roles include her work on political drama The Newsroom, British comedy Doll & Em, and the romantic drama The Pursuit of Love, which she also wrote and directed.
It was on the big screen where Emily really made her name, however, with roles in Notting Hill, the Scream saga, Shutter Island, Hugo, Mary Poppins Returns, the Cars trilogy, and most recently Paddington In Peru.
Emily and Alessandro were married in January 2003, having met each other on the set of 2000 film Love’s Labour’s Lost – Emily gave birth to Sam nine months later.
Sam spent his childhood in Notting Hill before the family moved to Brooklyn in New York City, studying at Saint Ann’s private school and then Columbia University.
The White Lotus has begun its third season in recent weeks (Picture: HBO) Emily gave Sam one of his first major roles on screen (Picture: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)He got his first acting role in Doll & Em and later starred in his mother’s production The Pursuit of Love before landing the role of Lochlan on The White Lotus.
His sister May – Emily and Alessandro’s second child – starred alongside Sam in the Noah Baumbach film White Noise in 2022 after she herself had also starred in The Pursuit of Love.
Speaking about being an entire family of actors and performers, Emily told The Times: ‘I guess we’re a … I don’t want to use the phrase ‘circus family’. That sounds a little bit depressing or pretentious. But we don’t know any different and we don’t know any better.’
‘As a family we’re all in it together. It just so happens that we’re all interested in a lot of the same things, have a lot in common, really like each other, and have a nice time together.’
Watch The White Lotus on Sky Atlantic and Sky Go.
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