After watching stepson Jackson White and Grace Van Patten‘s romance in real life, Kurt Sutter struggles seeing the couple’s onscreen sex scenes on Tell Me Lies.
“It’s hard for me to watch,” Sutter, 64, who has been married to White’s mother, Katey Sagal, since 2004, told Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen on the Monday, February 24, episode of their “Broad Ideas” podcast. “It’s just hard because I know Grace really well because they’re together, so it’s just like, ‘Oh, OK.’”
Bilson, 43, joked that the Sons of Anarchy creator didn’t want to watch White and Van Patten, both 28, “make out” to which he replied that it was “exactly” the reason why he usually avoided the show. Sutter still praised Tell Me Lies for having “a great soap quality” that allowed it to do “very well” on Hulu.
According to Sutter, White and Van Patten “start shooting again soon” soon after the series was picked up for a third season. Sutter may not be watching Tell Me Lies weekly, but viewers have been loving the messy show since it debuted in 2022.
Tell Me Lies’ Jackson White and Grace Van Patten’s Relationship Timeline
Tell Me Lies follows a fictional couple — played by White and Van Patten — whose toxic relationship affects everyone around them. White and Patten have remained largely tight-lipped about their romance, but his mother previously revealed how being cast as love interests led to something more.
“My son is on a television show and his girlfriend is the lead [too]. They play love interests and [they are dating in real life],” Sagal, 71, revealed on a January episode of Bilson’s podcast. “They have been for two years.”
Sagal noted that White and Patten have been dating “since the audition” to play Stephen and Lucy, respectively, on the hit Hulu series, adding, “They had such great chemistry.”
Later in the episode, Sagal said her experience in the industry was very different than her son’s because she maintained a professional boundary with her coworkers.
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“For us, when I was [acting] in my late 40s and 50s, it was just art. It was just the story that we were providing [on screen],” she said to Bilson, 42, who dated her O.C. love interest Adam Brody for the show’s four-season run from 2003 to 2007. “I think sometimes when you are younger it can lead to [more].”
While White and Van Patten’s relationship is thriving offscreen, their fictional counterparts aren’t as lucky. Season 2 of Tell Me Lies, which wrapped up in October 2024, picked up months after Stephen blindsided Lucy by ending their toxic relationship. They were back together by the end of the season, which most of Us know will lead to eight years of ups and downs.
Showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer previously explained how the show tries to show Lucy and Stephen’s perspective even if it isn’t favorable.
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“[It is all about] trying to be as honest with them as possible and letting the characters speak organically as you are creating the scenes,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in August 2024. “I generally have a lot of empathy for flawed people. I never want to write a character who I’m completely judging just because I think it is boring.”
Oppenheimer noted that Stephen is usually the one that is harder to root for on the show.
“I do think that Stephen is harder to empathize with — obviously — because it’s not just that he’s young. He is very dangerous. But then when you realize how he was raised and if you’re not given the right kind of love when you’re a child, it just creates disastrous results,” Oppenheimer continued. “So whenever you kind of remember that, you’re able to empathize a bit. But it’s hard. I do hope people empathize with them sometimes.”
Tell Me Lies is currently streaming on Hulu.
