It’s the crossover you never expected.
The White Lotus star Sam Nivola, who plays young Lochlan Ratliff in Season 3, reveals series creator Mike White recommended he and his co-stars turn to a rather surprising television show for inspiration ahead of the new season: Southern Charm.
“Mike told us to go watch Southern Charm,” Nivola told People. “In fact, Jason Isaacs, who played our dad, kind of modeled his whole accent and character off of [that cast].”
The Ratliff family are just a handful of the eccentric characters visiting The White Lotus resort in Thailand this season. Isaacs and Parker Posey star as the adoring parents of a proud southern family who are both hiding secrets of their own, while Nivola, Sarah Catherine Hook, and Patrick Schwarzenegger star as their children who share a questionable relationship.
White recommended they turn to the Bravo series – which follows the lives of socialites in Charleston, South Carolina, as they navigate dating, business, and each other’s drama – to nail their characters’ accents before Season 3.
Nivola added that Hook, who plays his sister in Season 3, did not have to watch the Bravo reality series for research because she already “had it down.”
“I’m from Alabama,” she said. “I found out through you guys. I was like, ‘He didn’t tell me to watch Southern Charm! I’m feeling left out.’”
Isaacs has previously revealed before that he studied the Durham, North Carolina accent to play Timothy Ratliff, whose financial career and privileged life could be crumbling away after he gets tied up in a former business partner’s illegal activities. His character’s behavior seems very Thomas Ravenel-coded, except for his specific accent.
It’s difficult to imagine Harry Potter‘s Lucius Malfoy watching Shep Rose and Craig Conover‘s messy love lives to prepare for one of HBO’s most prestigious series, but the research paid off: His and Posey’s dramatic Southern accents have certainly become a hot topic since the Season 3 premiere.
Hook recently told DECIDER that it was difficult to get through scenes with Posey due to her “singular” performance as Victoria Ratliff.
Hook said, “I wasn’t sure they were going to get like a clean take of me in that scene because I was like, ‘Are you sure you got it?’ Like, I was just laughing the whole time.”
New episodes of The White Lotus air at 9/8c on HBO and Max.
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