Interview: Sarah Catherine Hook Discusses ‘The White Lotus’ and Connecting with Piper From Her Own Upbringing

Sarah Catherine Hook is a southern girl. Born and raised in Alabama, her latest role in The White Lotus as Piper Ratciff, daughter of Victoria (Parker Posey) and Timothy (Jason Isaacs), was someone she understood fully when she signed on. The middle child of a family from North Carolina, Piper has brought her family to Thailand because her college studies of religion have guided her there to perhaps seek a new lifestyle free from the luxuries of the life she’s known. Upon looking into the temple she’s fascinated by, however, she quickly decides she’s unable to handle a life without comforts – much to the absolute thrill of her mother. It’s a dissection of wanting to break free of the shackles of technology and money without the will to part with the simplicities provided by both. Hook, being from the American South herself, is familiar with the raised-on-religion mentality that could fuel someone like Piper to dive deeper and create a desire of understanding the unfamiliarity of the rest of the world. 

I spoke to Hook about her time using her southern roots to her advantage, the time spent in Thailand, how having an opera background influences her preparation, and how she was able to easily connect with Piper.

Tyler Doster: What was the timeline from auditioning to landing in Thailand?

Sarah Catherine Hook: I got the audition a week after the actor strike ended, and I was actually on the plane on the way back to Toronto to finish filming Cruel Intentions because we started filming Cruel Intentions in the summer and then had to go back for the second half of making it. And yeah, it reached my inbox as I was in the air, and then I read her breakdown and her scenes, and I just had this really exciting, yummy gut feeling. And then pretty much immediately put myself on tape I think the next day, the following day, because I got in pretty late and then was like, I want to send this in as soon as possible.

And then got the re-tape with notes, sign, and then it’s funny because, and this was most of our experiences, so that was in November, I think. No, yeah, I think the strike ended end of October, beginning of November. So it all happened at the beginning of November, and then we were all kind of ghosted for a month and a half. There was so much excitement. Mike really likes your tapes. And then it was nothing. And then you’re like, “am I being punked? What’s happening?” So then a week or two before Christmas, we all got, like the whole group, got sent the callback, official callback notification with Mike White, and it was two days after Christmas and it was all of our one session. We all just had one director callback with Mike, and I think it’s mostly just so he can just meet us and make sure that we’re not assholes because he’s very instinctual with his casting. So I think he knew the second he saw all of our tapes. And then having just the official meeting. And then I got the part the very next day. So then from there, it was still Christmas break and I had one month, a month and a half left of filming Cruel Intentions from there too. So the rest of my time with Cruel Intentions, it was like, “Oh my gosh, you’re going to be on White Lotus. So exciting.” And then I had about a week after I finished filming Cruel Intentions, and then I went to Thailand. I had one week in between both shows. So it was pretty crazy. And I was also, as you saw, I was a fully blonde, completely different girl and just did a complete 180. And yeah, it was weird too. I mean in Toronto as well, it was snowy. Anyway, so that’s the timeline. I’m realizing I’m taking up so much of your time talking about this one story, but here we are.

TD: Whenever it comes to you guys finding out and then moving over to Thailand and you being on Cruel Intentions, were you having to do mental and emotional preparation on the set of Cruel Intentions in between tapes to get ready to go to Thailand knowing you were about to go?

SCH: That’s such a great question because I was really, really struggling with it because I had never had to juggle two roles at the same time to that degree. I mean, I’ve done it where I’m doing a series regular job while also, oh, I was a guest star on this other job. That’s different. But having to create their whole worldview and building them from the ground up, it was weird because I was like, I really need to give Caroline from Cruel Intentions. I need to give her my all. I signed on to her first, I have to go hard. I can’t just abandon her in the middle of filming. With White Lotus preparation, we started more with dialect coachings because the boys and I had to have kind of a similar coaching, which I don’t know if we’ve nailed it or not. I don’t know if any of us really did it. I tried to plug in a few y’alls here and there. I think you can hear some subtle isms from me, I hope. But we just did very, very light dialect work, and that was, we would do that once a week, once every two weeks or so while I was filming Cruel Intentions. So that kept me, that was my beginning of working with Piper. But I tried to do some research and just re-familiarize myself with Buddhism and just religion in general. I had this really cool book that I read a long time ago about all of the five major religions that was just a comparative religions book. I didn’t feel like I needed to completely be an expert because I felt like I already had a lot of knowledge around religion and spirituality anyway, just from my classes that I’ve taken or growing up in the church or having my own interest here and there. But just, yeah, like I said, re-familiarizing myself. The juggling of the two roles was not, that was new for me, and I don’t think that I did a very good job of it. I really was like, I have to finish working with Caroline before I fully come on to Piper because they’re too different. You know what I mean?

TD: Yeah, I’m sure mentally that’s a lot to take on knowing that you have to also go to a foreign country.

SCH: Yes. Yeah, exactly. There was no mental preparation for that. I was dissociating from that. Especially that week before going, I could not get in my brain that I was about to move to Thailand for six months. I was having a really hard time actually believing that. And especially if you have never been to Asia or just anywhere that far, how can you possibly imagine what your life is going to be like? You just have no concept of what that even looks like. 

TD: So going back to what you said a second ago, how did your upbringing in the American South inform your decisions when playing someone who’s majoring in religion?

SCH: Yeah, it wasn’t that hard for me to tap into her core in that sense, because I had such a similar upbringing. I actually said this the other day though, what I struggled with the most was the age difference because she was 22 and I was 28 when I booked it, and then I turned 29 when I was there. And in the beginning I was really, really struggling with playing someone so much younger, even though I do that often, like Caroline, from Cruel Intentions was the same age, but she was more of a formidable woman, whereas Piper still is still a little tender baby.

TD: A self-proclaimed princess.

SCH: A self-proclaimed princess. Exactly. But I don’t know, and I said this to someone recently, I kind of turned her into my… Instead of me trying to relate to her so much, I just decided to make her my little sister. And that released a lot of pressure from myself. We are kindred spirits. But I’m going, “I know I’ve been down this similar path as you, where I think I know what I want, but I also haven’t even had a taste of the real world yet. So actually you don’t know anything, but it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” But yeah, I mean, it wasn’t hard to tap into as far as culturally how we both grew up in the South and everything and the expectations from your southern families. It’s a different world in the South that people, unless you just lived there and experienced it, you can’t actually fully understand it, which is why it’s so great talking to you because you do understand it. But yeah, just the church going aspect of  and the southern traditional parts of it, I was a freaking debutante, and I’m sure Piper is too. You know what I mean? There is a princess aspect to being a southern girl. 

TD: You mentioned earlier being able to craft a character from the ground up. Was there anything you were able to craft into Piper that wasn’t originally written to the character?

SCH: That’s a good question. Yeah. I don’t love giving my characters backstories because I think it can be a little bit cluttered if you try to do that. You don’t need to overdo information for your character. It’s more about finding their essence.Some people who do backstories, it really helps them. I know that everyone has a different process and I’m definitely not downplaying anyone’s methods by any means, but for myself, I’ve noticed when I’ve tried to do backstories in the past, it can get a little messy, but I did, I couldn’t help but just notice certain things as far as family dynamics go and answering kind of why they are like that actually was kind of helpful, understanding her relationship with Saxon more. And I found this interesting because people in the media were saying, “I think something happened

between Saxon and Piper when they were little.” And I have literally in my notes of creating Piper in my journal, I have,”I think something happened to Piper from Saxon when they were very” and it was like, “this might be something worth exploring more.” It was just funny because I was looking at my notes two weeks ago. I literally wrote that down, and people are also assuming that. So it’s kind of cool that we all saw that from those two characters, and without even having to talk about it later on too, I think it’s a major possibility. So yeah, stuff like that and understanding where she stands with each of them individually, what kind of person she’s with Lochlan or with her dad or with her mom, and identifying those dynamics between each of them I think is helpful. But a lot of that also comes from just doing the work with each actor. You can’t really decide what those dynamics are until you work with the characters that your co-stars have created. So a lot of it was learning on the job what those were.

TD: Did you guys also have conversations in between takes, and also you guys spent so much time together over in Thailand, were you specifically with your family, speaking about these relationships and when you were crafting your journals, were you talking to them about that?

SCH: Yeah, there were. In the beginning we did talk a little bit about it, but then it became so natural that we didn’t have to have those conversations anymore. But I did remember Parker, Sam, Patrick and I kind of got together at one point. We had already been filming some stuff, but we were just to discuss more about family dynamics in general. Not even just these characters specifically, but I think the older brother and younger sister complex is really interesting because I have that same thing, and I kind of shared my personal experience around it, how I want to be taken more seriously, but I’m always just the one who is seen more as princess or just I get the love, but not the respect. Whereas Saxon, the older brother type gets the respect but not the love. So that was an interesting thing for us to kind of explore together. That’s why I’m such a sponge and whoever I’m with, that’s going to be my personality and my influence. So we definitely had interesting family type conversations together in the beginning. And then, like I said, once we got on set on the day, a lot of it is just being game to just pass the ball to one another and adjusting where Mike wants us to. It was a lot of just playing, honestly, especially last year was such a big year for me. I worked with so many different types of actors on different types of jobs too, different genres and everything. And the biggest takeaway from last year was just play. Just play. And also laugh a lot on set too. You need to feel comfortable and safe. And even, for example, the scene where Victoria and I come running in together and we find Timothy dead on the floor and we’re screaming, we were laughing the entire time. That was, and then seeing it, you’re like, wow, that kind of worked just like having fun and it loosens you up. And it is an emotion too, so you can use any type of emotion that can help you get to those places. It doesn’t always have to be scary. I need to feel fear. No, if laughing helps you get there, laugh. So it’s kind of cool. And I just had a lot of really big lessons last year that I will now take with me on every job.

TD: Speaking about preparation in a different way, how do you think having an opera-trained background informs your preparation for roles, both long-term preparation and day of shooting?

SCH: Wow, I love that question. It’s funny because being an opera major, it requires a lot of discipline. And I will say I’m really thankful I’m not singing classically professionally, because I think you have to be a certain type of person to do that kind of job and have that kind of career. You’re probably always on vocal rest. Emma Stone, when she was on Broadway, she was like, “I had to live like a monk.” I had to live like a monk. I didn’t talk. I didn’t do anything. And I’m like, yeah, dude, that’s true. I kind of feel like I had that in college a little bit. And it’s very freeing for me to be an actor and not have to worry so much about… I mean, I do take care of my voice and I do care about vocal health, but not in the way that I did in college. So I feel like those chains have been broken, but I would say, I don’t know, I, the biggest thing that I took away from college and what has stayed with me probably is the discipline, because they were so hard on us, which sounds kind of bad. It’s like they abused us. But no, they did not do that. It’s funny. I’m finding myself trying to answer it being like, “I did take away something from opera,” but honestly, the best thing that I’ve been able to do since that was let it all go because I was overly efficient and disciplined, and I am thankful that I had that time. But it’s been nice through acting that I’ve been able to release that. I don’t know, they’re so different. I will say though, when I was in opera school, I was the actor of my class. Everyone knew, that’s in my class at least, that they knew that that was really, really what I wanted to do. But since I could sing, I really needed to train. It was important for me to train my voice, and I do not regret it. And I’m so glad I did, and I’ve learned so much there, and I’m thankful for that time and for the training that I got. But yeah, I’m just happy that it all worked out. I’m happy that I got the training of singing, and I get to now be an actor. Oh my God, who gets to do that? I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

TD: Yeah, maybe both combined together is what you needed just to make it all work.

SCH: One day, and then I’ll really be able to answer that question. Once I’m able to combine them together and I get to do something where I sing. Call me when I get to sing in something.

TD: I will. I will then ask you that question again, and I’ll remind you that I asked it here.

SCH: Yes. Good. [laughs]

TD: I need to know, did Jason Isaacs make that pina colada for y’all, and how did that actually taste?

SCH: It was not good. I think we all… Patrick [Schwarzenegger] was actually sick as a dog that night. I thought he was going to throw up everywhere. I was scared, and we were eating these, it wasn’t even a real drink. It was just foam. It was sugary foam. I honestly don’t even know. I mean, the coconut milk was off. It was off. It was not tasty, which I think maybe helped us. I kind of feel like I remember it having a bit of a sour… Our faces were kind of scrunched up from the sourness of it, which is good, probably. I’m glad it didn’t taste good. But yeah, it was so long ago, so I can’t remember exactly, but I don’t think any of us liked it. Also, that was a night shoot, so we’re having very sugary foamy milky drinks at three in the morning and looking over at Patrick about to vomit makes you want to vomit.

TD: Was there anything that you learned from the other actors, specifically Parker Posey and Jason [Isaacs , that you’ll be taking two other sets with you?

SCH: Yeah. Like I said, the play aspect, they were both very playful and both of them, Jason especially, I noticed he was always… Parker was the one who for the screaming part, she was like, we just need to have fun because I told her I was so nervous about it, because I hate screaming scenes. And I was like, “I’m so bad at them. I don’t want to do this. Can we put Lochlan in here? I don’t want to do this scene.” And she’s like, “We just need to have fun, Sarah Catherine.”And then  we were just rolling around in blood laughing so hard. It was great. And then Jason is so good at, he’ll just be having a conversation because he’s a chatty, chatty, chatty man. But he will just be having gleeful conversation and making us laugh. And then it’s like action, dips right into Timothy. And it’s so weird how quickly, but I think, again, everybody requires something different. And I think I am similar to Jason in that way, and I’ve never really allowed myself to just do that because I think I’m like, oh, surely people would think I’m being unprofessional. But honestly, yeah, what I’ve learned from everyone

is whatever you need, do that. You’re allowed to be kooky. You’re an actor, you’re playing pretend for a living. So just be your silly self. And then even if it is this tearful, emotional, or angry, whatever big emotion you have to do, whatever you need to do to get there, do it. That’s what I learned. I mean, I already knew that, but now I feel like I’ve allowed myself to do that more to just off before action. Getting to just be silly. That’s the best. Yeah.

TD: I’m sure the discipline of the opera background kind of pushed you into a box that made you believe that wasn’t okay.

SCH: Exactly. Be a good girl. Yeah, yeah. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Yeah. No, this has opened me up to be the silly girl that I am.

Sarah Catherine Hook is Emmy-eligible in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for The White Lotus.