‘The White Lotus’ Star Jason Isaacs Denies He Based His Accent on ‘Southern Charm’

Contrary to what some viewers (and his co-stars) may believe, “The White Lotus” Season 3 star Jason Isaacs has insisted that he did not base his performance or accent in the HBO series on anyone from “Southern Charm.”

“I did not watch or base anything on anybody from ‘Southern Charm.’ That’s the end of that conversation. Sorry,” Isaacs revealed Thursday during an appearance on SiriusXM’s “Andy Cohen Live.” The actor’s comments come weeks after fellow “White Lotus” Season 3 star Sam Nivola, who played Lochlan, the youngest son of Isaacs’ Tim Ratliff, said that series creator Mike White told this season’s Ratliff actors to watch “Southern Charm” to prepare for their roles as an American family visiting Thailand from North Carolina.

On the surface, it seems like a fitting recommendation, given not only that White is a self-professed reality TV fan but also that “Southern Charm” focuses on a group of socialites living in Charleston, S.C. “Jason Isaacs, who played our dad, kind of modeled his whole accent and character off of [that cast],” Nivola told People in February.

Isaacs, however, said that watching the Bravo series would not have helped him prepare for “The White Lotus” Season 3. “Right at the beginning, [White] said, ‘Here’s a guy you might want to think about,’ and I found out instantly when reading the script that I was from Durham and I spoke to the world’s best dialect coach, Liz Holstein,” Isaacs recalled. “She went, ‘Those accents are no use to you.'”

Instead of studying the stars of “Southern Charm,” Isaacs turned his attention toward other prominent public figures. “I found politicians from Durham because what’s really interesting about Durham — and this is to those people on the internet who were incredibly rude about me, which [they] are entitled to do, but about my accent particularly —they have two vowel sounds,” Isaacs explained. “One is the short ‘A’ sound and the other is the dipthong ‘O’ sound and that is pretty unique to Durham.”

“None of’ ‘Southern Charm’ would’ve been useful to me,” the actor concluded. “So I based it on some politicians.”

Despite contradicting Nivola’s claim, Isaacs told Cohen he is extremely fond of the young actor and the other members of their fictional “White Lotus” family. “I love those idiots. I really love them. I spent a lot of time with them,” he revealed. “I love ’em all. I speak to them most days or text each other. I’m so proud of not just the work they did in it, but the great things that are happening to them now.”

In a separate interview on “The Happy Hour on SiriusXM’s TODAY Show Radio,” Isaacs also downplayed rumors of in-cast fighting during the making of “The White Lotus” Season 3. “People need to remember it was the actors and the crew and the administrators and all these people were in a little pressure cooker together. And like anywhere you go for the summer, there’s friendships, there’s romances, there’s arguments, there’s cliques that form and break and reform and stuff like that,” Isaacs said.

“All these amateur Sherlock Holmes out there, they’re extrapolating, ‘Well, one person posted this,’ and nobody has the slightest clue what they’re talking about,” he continued. “People who think they’re onto something, and then it gets magnified because of a thousand other people. Nobody has any clue [what] I’m talking about.”

“I’m just saying it wasn’t a holiday, and partly I started saying that because people think we were on a seven-month holiday and believe me, it felt like work a lot of the time,” he added. “It was insanely hot and there’s all the normal social tensions you get anywhere, but for all of you [who] think you’ve cracked it by something you think someone has posted or is in a photo or not, you’re just so far from the truth, believe me.”