Fathers, Sons & Brothers

'I'll always be seen by everyone as Timothy Ratliff's son and I'm okay with that. I am. As long as everything at work is going good. And everything at work is going good, right?'

Saxton Ratcliff

Every season of The White Lotus is about human relationships.  This past season,  with the Ratcliff family, the focus was on familial relationships.  The dysfunctional sibling bonds, the relationship between Timothy and his wife Victoria, and their relationship with their children.  

Although the physical relationship between the brothers got most of the attention, the relationship between Timothy and his two sons was also incredibly complicated.  The oldest son Saxton's career was closely tied to father's, making his father's illegal actions even more far reaching.  In the shows final episodes he saved the life of son Lochlan, it was after he attempted to murder the rest of his family.

The Schwarzenegger's

It's interesting to me that it was only one actor playing a son who was labeled with being a 'nepo baby.'  Patrick Schwarzenegger has actually been acting for over 20 years, but his projects, for the most part, have gone under the radar.  His role as Saxton in The White Lotus however, was definitely his highest profile role to date.  Unfortunately Schwarzenegger gave the label light, by discussing it in interviews.

I think most of us, don't really care if an actor is a 'nepo baby' if they're talented.  We all know kids of famous actors have a leg up, but it comes with both positive, and negative advantages.  Few of us care that Laura Dern's parents are actors, mostly because she's talented.  Many of us mocked Tori Spelling, because many of us think she's not.  

It was interesting to me that I rarely saw Sam Nivola, (Lochlan) get the same questioning as his TV brother.  Maybe it's because Nivola was less well known, although I've actually seen more of his prior work than Schwarzenegger's.  Maybe it's because Arnold is a much bigger, well known celebrity.

It's sort of interesting that although Arnold Schwarzenegger has certainly acted, he's not really seen as much of an actor.  He's more a well known celebrity for a number of things in addition to his film roles.  Both of Sam Nivola's parents are considered 'serious' actors, both with far more critically acclaimed movies than Arnold.  Neither however, broke the pop culture bubble the way Schwarzenegger managed to do.   

I have to acknowledge, that I wasn't really aware of the connection between Sam and his famous parents until recently, I was familiar with his father, who because of nude scenes, appeared on FH several times in the past.  Check out more of Alessandro Nivola, including one of my favorite butt scenes, on the NEXT PAGE HERE:

Sam with his parents