‘The Perfect Couple’ Star Sam Nivola Readies for the Hollywood Spotlight
If you’ve seen “The Perfect Couple,” the six-part murder mystery set in the uber-wealthy world of Nantucket, and lusted over the setting, Sam Nivola confirms it was as fun to make as it is to watch.
“We would just drive around and, of course, we were working a lot, but we had so much fun. It was the summer in f–king Cape Cod. It was beautiful,” the 20-year-old actor says over Zoom. “We went whale watching a bunch, went to Provincetown to see drag shows, it was just a really memorable experience getting to chum around with everyone and cook meals together and just have a good time.”
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Nivola, who is the son of Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola, stars in the Netflix series alongside Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Eve Hewson, Meghann Fahy and more. The show debuted globally as the number-one show on Netflix, with 20.3 million views over the first weekend.
Nivola plays Will, the youngest son of the Winbury clan, who are put under a microscope when during the wedding weekend of one of the sons, a body washes up on their shore.
“I got an email from my agent to tape for it, and I saw that it had this star-studded cast and was directed by Susanne Bier, who’s just like — I don’t claim to know a lot about TV, I’m more of a movie guy, but she is a legend when it comes to TV,” Nivola says. “I was just like, ‘Of course I would do this.’”
Up next, Nivola has a coveted role in the new season of “The White Lotus,” which is set in Thailand. “The Perfect Couple” has drawn plenty of comparisons to the hit series, which Nivola, having been inside them both, says is warranted.
“I totally see it. I would say the subject matter is quite similar, but the execution is very different. I think that that’s very much the zeitgeist of this decade right now, because obviously in the world there’s the worst income inequality of all time, and it’s always fascinating to see how these people live. What do you do if you have no responsibilities and you have a billion dollars?” Nivola says.
He remains tight-lipped about “The White Lotus,” other than to rave broadly about the experience, which had him living in Thailand for six months following his summer on Cape Cod.
“The cast was incredible. Mike White is a total legend and a badass and a genius, and it was serious fun,” he says.
As generally goes with actor parents, Nivola’s originally urged him not to follow in their footsteps.
“They have always told me, ‘Don’t be an actor.’ I don’t want to be all ‘woe is me,’ but it is a difficult life no matter how successful you are because it is hard to maintain relationships when you have to travel a lot, and there are things that are very difficult about it. So I always was sort of wary of it growing up,” he says.
He sometimes tagged along with his parents to film sets, occasionally doing a one line bit when “they needed someone’s kid to be in it,” but he wasn’t that drawn to the whole experience.
“I sort of hated going to their sets growing up because first of all, if you’re 10 years old you just want to be either playing video games or hanging out with your friends,” he says.
He loved being in drama class and school plays, but it wasn’t until he got a Criterion Channel subscription when he was 14 that he really fell hard for movies.
“I decided I needed to reinvent myself as a pretentious guy, and I got really, really obsessed with movies and watched everything that’s on that website,” he says with a laugh. “I fell in love with visual storytelling more than acting specifically and I became way more interested in film and television than in theater.”
Nivola attended Saint Anne’s School in Brooklyn rather than a specific performing arts program, but acting talent was still abundant: Fred Hechinger, Maya Hawke and Lucas Hedges were all older classmates of Nivola’s. When he was 17, his drama teacher emailed him about an open casting call for Noah Baumbach’s movie “White Noise,” and he promptly landed it.
Looking beyond “White Lotus,” which will undoubtedly have its fair share of press requirements for the cast, Nivola is eager to change it up.
“I’ve played very similar characters in my very short career. I’ve only done a few movies and shows, but I’ve always played a pretty awkward teenage virgin who is trying to find his way in the world — and I love those roles. If I can humbly say, I think I’m pretty good at them now that I’ve done it so many times, but I want to try something new,” he says. “I’d love to do a cool guy role.”
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