Sam Nivola and Cooper Koch both played brothers in complicated fraternal relationships this past year. Nivola, as Lochlan Ratliff on “The White Lotus,” yearned to impress elder sibling Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), but ended up in an intoxicated tryst with him. Koch, as Erik Menendez on “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” had to deliver a prismatic performance, illuminating all the ways that commentators and intimates saw the case of two brothers accused and later convicted of killing their parents. Both actors also had to deliver showpiece moments: Nivola in Lochlan’s season-ending near-death experience and Koch in a one-take episode in which Erik explains to his attorney the abuse within the Menendez household.
Sam Nivola: This is our first time meeting.
Cooper Koch: But I feel like we’ve known each other — you kind of are my brother.
Nivola: We should have been in each other’s shows.
Koch: It should have just been us. So what’s the beginning for you? Where did it all start?
Nivola: I’m 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 actor parents, but my grandfather was a producer.
Nivola: I constantly get the question.
Koch: Nepo baby.
Nivola: Yeah, nepo baby. My whole thing was that my parents really didn’t want me to be an actor, which I totally get — I don’t know if I’d want my kid to be an actor. It’s a really mentally tough career to be in. And even if I had no success, I would want to be doing it. But they really didn’t want me to do it.
Koch: And then, of course, you’re like, “Sorry, I’m doing it, guys.”
Nivola: You did a lot of theater in high school?
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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 then what’s the next one? And then you go again.
What were you doing before you got that first job? Did you do any theater?
Nivola: I did. I did all the school plays that I could do. I was just really into watching movies. I initially got a Criterion Channel subscription to impress this girl that I was courting. She’s like, “I wear berets, and I’m really into France at the moment.” And I was like, “OK, I can get behind that.”
And then I had a period of ultimate pretension and 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 college, which I understand.
Koch: Did you not go to college?
Nivola: I went to college for one semester.
Koch: I love that. How did you land this crazy part that …
Nivola: … changed my life? I fear it’s not going to be as interesting as you think it is, because it’s literally like, did a self-tape, did a callback, booked it. My callback was with Mike [White]. The one thing that was different is that his writing is just unbelievably natural and real. Not that other writing I’ve worked with in the past isn’t, but there’s something I specifically love about the way he writes that made it so I didn’t have to do any work to prepare for the audition.
What about your audition process? What’s Ryan Murphy’s vibe?
Koch: We actually didn’t know that he was going to be there. They didn’t tell us. We just thought it was going to be casting directors. But then he just waltzes in the room. He was like, “How much do you know?” And I was like, “I know everything.”
Nivola: Referring to the lines?
Koch: No, referring to the story. We sat down and had this amazing conversation about it all. It really calmed the nerves. We went upstairs and did the callback for two hours. We did three scenes and had conversations in between. It was very collaborative — one of the best audition experiences I’ve ever had.
Nivola: “What do you know?” That’s amazing. You were like, “All of it.”
Koch: “I know everything!” Because I’ve been with 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 movie that they were doing the same year. I just felt this insane cosmic thing that was like, “I have to play this part.” And this immense empathy. There are all of these weird parallels. We both went to Calabasas High School.
Nivola: Holy shit.
Koch: Yeah. So it’s been a long ride. And I still care so deeply about both of them. They’re going to parole board in June; that looks very positive.
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Nivola: Did you watch tons of videos to try to impersonate the way he speaks and the way he walks? What level of impersonating were you doing? Part of what I love so much about the show is that there’s 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 him on in the car when I was driving. I really did want to get his voice and mannerisms, because they all further support that he was being sexually abused by his father. I know there’s so many perspectives, but I always wanted the audience to sympathize with him.
Nivola: I have to ask you about the one-take episode. How many takes did you do?
Koch: I had eight months with it, so I just read it every day, and I would visualize what he was saying and create those images so clearly, so that when we went to do it, it would emotionally affect me. We did eight takes, four on the first day, four on the second day, and they chose the very last one.
Nivola: This was near the end of the shoot?
Koch: Yeah — I had a really long time with it, and it was the backbone of my whole character. That was my backstory; I didn’t have to write one. They wrote it for me.
Let me turn it back on you. How did you get your relationship down? You and Patrick had such an interesting dichotomy.
Nivola: We talked to each other a lot about it. Part of the nature of that show that makes it such a dream as an actor is that you’re living with the people that are your family in the show, and you’re spending all your time with them. They’ve shut the hotels down so there’s no one else there to distract you. The time difference with New York was 12 hours, so I was hardly in touch with anyone.
Koch: You’re really in that bubble.
Nivola: And you feel like your character, in a lot of ways, because you’re sleeping in the same bed. We talked with Mike a lot about the siblings, getting the dynamic of those two on opposite ends of this spectrum of morality. I think something we’ve both had to deal with is lots of people being like, “Your character’s kind of a creep.”
Koch: It’s so funny. I didn’t feel that way at all. At the end, when you’re like, “I’m a people pleaser, I just want to make everybody happy, I’m in a family of narcissists,” I fully was like, “Yes. That’s what this is.” What do people say?
Nivola: Well, they’re just saying he’s a sexual deviant of some sort. In your case as well, let’s say they were murderers who killed in cold blood and there was no reason for it. Or let’s say my character is a pervert. You still have to find a way as an actor to love your character. I get really protective over my characters.
Koch: As you should. That’s the only way.
Nivola: You can tell, watching, how much you love Erik, and that’s a beautiful thing.
Koch: So to bring it around to death, what was that like?
Nivola: It was really emotional. Before going to Thailand, I would speak very disparagingly about actors coming back from a shoot and being like, “I really lost myself in the character.” “Fuck you!” But when I was there, I was like, “I get it now.” I felt like Jason Isaacs was my dad, bringing such raw realness to that scene: I’m in this moment, and I’m dying.
Koch: I really thought you were gone.
Nivola: I did too.
Production: BAUIE+RAD; Production Design: Francisco Vargas
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