By Alicia Rancilio
Jackson White's favorite episode of his new Hulu series " Tell Me Lies " was also the hardest for him to film. His real-life mom, actor Katey Sagal, played his mother on this week's fifth episode.
We meet Sagal's character, Norah, when White's Stephen returns home from college for Christmas break. He's the middle child of three kids who were raised by their single mom. Throughout the episode we see Norah's manipulation tactics and distortion of reality. She uses her own children as scapegoats and deflects any focus put onto her own behavior.
It immediately clicks why the Stephen character is the way he is, calculating, often dishonest and usually maintaining an upper-hand with those around him.
Meaghan Oppenheim, the showrunner, said her mother was "obsessed" with the Sagal-starring sitcom "Married… with Children" and when it came time to cast the Stephen character's mother, she had the idea to ask Sagal to play the part. First, she wanted White's blessing.
"I felt I had to ask Jackson before anyone else. So I texted him. I said, 'How would you feel if your mom played Norah?' And he didn't respond for a while and then he was like, 'I love it. Let's talk to her.'"
Sagal says all it took was a chat with Oppenheim and her response was an "immediate yes."
White describes the experience as "insane" but also says she was "perfect casting."
"I'm friends with my mother, and we had to be extremely passive aggressive and tense, but it was so fun and exciting to build that relationship and talk to each other how we've never really talked to each other," he said.
Sagal agreed: "It was a challenge to leave our very close relationship at the door, and take on the extremely toxic dynamic between Stephen and his mom. Jackson shows up fully on set, ready to play, present and collaborative," she added. "It was beautiful."
White's co-star, Grace Van Patten, who portrays Lucy, Stephen's love interest on the series, who is often making excuses for him and feeling disappointed, also says it was her "favorite episode."
"It's such a good middle mark because you can't hate Stephen really any more than you do before episode four, so then five comes in and it slaps some empathy on, you reboot your feelings and possibly understand him a little bit more."
Sagal and White are not the first parent and child actors to share scenes together. Other examples include Ryan and Tatum O'Neal in the 1973 film "Paper Moon," Will and Jaden Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness" in 2006 and Donald and Kiefer Sutherland in the 2016 movie "Forsaken."
Alicia Rancilio is an AP writer
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More