Sam Nivola is working his ass off

For Sam Nivola, it’s always been about tending to his inner cinephile. He spent his high school allowance on a Criterion Channel subscription to watch classic movies, and from there, “one thing led to another”. By that, he means amassing quite the resumé while barely through the gates of adulthood. At 21, the British-American actor has shared a screen with some serious industry bigwigs — Nicole Kidman and Adam Driver have played his parents on separate occasions — and he’s worked on films directed by Noah Baumbach and Bradley Cooper. Yet, “there’s not a second that I’m on a film set and I don’t feel terrified”, Nivola confesses. Surprising, perhaps, for someone who is genetically predisposed to the industry (his parents are the actors Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola), and who took his first role at the age of nine. Still, Nivola doesn’t take any of this for granted, ever wary of the times that “you don’t get a job for a year”, which “keeps you so close to the ground you could kiss it”.

Fresh from his role in the new series of The White Lotus, he talks to HUNGER about putting the world to rights through movies, the pleasure of playing angry teenagers and what’s in the pipeline for his production company.

Marina Rabin: You’ve had an impressive start to your career. What inspired you to get into acting at such a young age?

Sam Nivola: It’s funny, I actually got into movies before I really got into acting itself. I mean, I did all the school plays and everything — I always found it really fun, of course. How could you not? But when I was about 15, I started spending my allowance on a Criterion subscription and one thing led to another. When I got my first audition to be in a Noah Baumbach movie, I was more excited about
the prospect of getting to meet and be on the set of one of my favourite directors than I was about the acting itself. But then once I got the role and got to act opposite such amazingly talented people, it made me want to just get better and be able to go toe to toe with those people.

MR: You mentioned falling in love with old films after subscribing to the Criterion Channel. How has your love for classic cinema influenced your approach to acting?

SN: My love for classic cinema has definitely influenced my acting in some ways, but also not at all. My favourite performances of all time tend to be from older movies and I really look up to those legends — as does everyone else. But I also feel that acting is such a personal profession and art that it’s really hard to look at any performance, even the best ones of all time, and be able to know exactly what you want to do on your next job.

MR: In [the Netflix series] The Perfect Couple, you play Will Winbury, a nervous, awkward teenager. How did you prepare to embody Will and what did you find most interesting about playing him?

SN: What I loved most about Will is that he was different. He was naive and innocent and hadn’t yet accepted the insanity of his family like his older brothers had. This made him an interesting foil to the rest of the family’s dynamic. And, most importantly, he was angry, about literally everything, which is so fun to play. I hadn’t really gotten to do that before.

This excerpt was taken from HUNGER Issue 34: Fight Back. Stay tuned for the full story.