‘Friend of Family’ more sinister role for ‘White Lotus’ star Lacy
While most people slowed down during the pandemic, Jake Lacy’s schedule accelerated. It began with filming “The White Lotus” for HBO, where his portrayal of an entitled newlywed dissatisfied with his honeymoon hotel room earned Lacy his first Emmy nomination.
“Since ‘White Lotus,’ I feel like I haven’t stopped moving. If I’m home between now and New Year’s, that’ll be the longest we’ve been in one place in two-plus years,” said Lacy, 38, from his home in Connecticut that he shares with his wife and two sons.
But he’s also quick to note his good fortune because “my love for this work fires every one of my cylinders. When it’s good, it’s good. There’s just nothing better for me (besides) my family, and this work. Maybe reading books. That’s it.”
Lacy has been recognizable for more than a decade, popping up, for instance, on the final season of “The Office” as Pete, a new salesman at Dunder Mifflin, or as a suitor for Rooney Mara in “Carol.” There was also a recurring role as Lena Dunham’s good-guy boyfriend, Fran, in HBO’s “Girls.”
Although he was “working consistently,” Lacy said doubt about that next job would creep in. “I felt like, ‘I don’t know how
I’m going to have two kids and buy a house and do this, like it just might not happen’ ... then a job would come along and buoy me long enough to not feel that way anymore.”
When “White Lotus” began production, Lacy said the set was energized by having cameras roll again.
“I think because of the pandemic, none of us had filmed in a year or eight
months at best. There was a real enthusiasm and kind of gnawing excitement to be like, ‘Get me out there, let’s do this,’ you know?” Lacy said.
His latest role, in the Peacock limited series “A Friend of the Family,” is more sinister. He portrays a man who ingrains himself into a churchgoing family in the 1970s, only to abduct one of the daughters twice.
“A Friend of the Family” recently dropped its first four episodes with the remaining five doled out weekly on Thursdays.
Lacy plays Robert Berchtold, or “B,” who meets the Broberg family and immediately zeros in on one of the young daughters, Jan. “B” manipulates the Brobergs in a multitude of ways to gain access to Jan. The series is based on true events with the real Jan Broberg and her mother, Mary Ann, signed on as producers. (A documentary about the case, “Abducted in Plain Sight,” began streaming on Netflix in 2019.)
When he took the job, Lacy wanted to make sure the children who worked on the series would be regarded with care.
“Right from the jump, I asked (showrunner) Nick
(Antosca), ‘How are you handling the abuse?’ He was like, ‘We don’t. We don’t show it.’ Narratively, I have no interest in it. As a producer, I don’t want to create that kind of television.”
As the person portraying the abuser, Lacy said he wanted to make sure both the kids and their parents felt safe because “the worst thing would be to try to tell a story about grooming and trauma and in the process, traumatize a kid.”
“The production went out of their way to do that as well, both having a therapist on set always by union regulations, and then also changing the sides and scripts that were given to the kids, to protect them from what the experience was.”
Lacy also co-stars in the genre-blending film “Significant Other,” now streaming on Paramount+. Lacy and Maika Monroe play a young couple on a camping trip in Oregon.
“It’s a tough thing to talk about because the basis of the movie is a spoiler. You can only kind of offer up the first act and be like, ‘They’re camping and a thing happens,’ ” he laughed. “But when the switch flips, it was a lot of fun to do.”