Katey Sagal Reveals That She Adores Working With Her Son on ‘Tell Me Lies’

Working with family isn’t always easy. But, while some couples end up splitting up, or families get strained, sometimes it ends up being the dream collaboration they’d hoped for. For Katey Sagal, working with her son, Jackson White, brought them closer.

They Play ‘Psycho Mom & Son’ on the Show

“So it was really fun for us,” Sagal told People. “We had never, we have sung together before on stage but we’d never worked as actors together and we have a super close relationship. We are not like Psycho Mom and Son. And it was really fun to put on different clothes to be these different people.”

While we’ve all seen the cracks that can appear in a family when actors’ personal lives become too enmeshed with their acting lives, many examples exist of families bonding over their experiences. Playing characters so opposite their real personalities was a blast for Sagal and White.

“We naturally were just like, respecting each other’s process. So I think it was really comfortable,” White told ABC’s On the Red Carpet. We both knew that we needed like, you know, a little space. Maybe we needed to talk about it. We rehearsed a bunch. But no, she’s the most supportive person ever. It was great.”

White Has Tried to Separate Himself From His Mom

Some celebrity kids share their parents’ famous last names, such as Zoe Kravitz and Lily-Rose Depp, but a growing number don’t. Rob Schneider’s daughter changed her name to Elle King, while Liam Neeson’s son, Micheál Neeson, changed his last name to Richardson to honor his late mother. White fits into the latter category, with his last name being the same as his father instead of his famous mother.

“[Jackson] hates that whole ‘nepo baby’ thing,” Sagal said to People. “He didn’t lean into any of that. You know, he has a different last name than me, and a lot of people don’t know that he’s my kid, and he takes a lot of pride in that. As does Sarah, my daughter does as well.”

Ironically, Sagal was also a ‘nepo baby,’ born into a showbiz family with a television director father, Boris Sagal, and a singer, producer, and television writer mother, Sara Zwilling. She recalled to The List that her father helped her get work so she could get a union card, but overall, she believes that in the end, it doesn’t matter who her parents are.

“Once you get in the door, which is definitely hard to get in, then you’re on your own,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what your name is. It doesn’t matter who your parents are. It doesn’t matter. Your talent has to stand on its own or it’s not going to happen.”