Alessandro Nivola finds nuance in playing Calvin Klein in 'Love Story'

“I didn’t go over because I didn’t want to bother him,” Nivola says.

He didn’t need to watch the way Klein acted, either, because he had been immersing himself in news footage and interviews.

“I didn’t need to watch the way he moved," he says. "Certainly, there was nothing about my performance that was designed to slander him. On the contrary, I was trying to convey a nuanced portrait of him — a man who was incredibly exacting and demanded a certain standard of excellence as part of his workplace.”

In the limited series, Bessette is seen working at Klein’s design firm. When she’s sent roses, staffers promptly discard them because Klein wants to maintain an “orchids only” aesthetic. The quirk was “all part of his creative genius,” Nivola says.

When Bessette tells Klein she’s leaving the company, he feels betrayed — but even more so when one of his proteges gets the assignment to design her wedding gown.

“The beauty of the scene is that there are so many different emotions running through simultaneously,” Nivola says. “He’s just seething with rage because he’s somebody so unused to being in a position of vulnerability. At the same time, he cares so much about her that he can’t help but want the best for her. He can’t bear to see her off without parting words of affection, advice and love.”

While Nivola hasn’t experienced a split like the one depicted in “Love Story,” his son Sam, also an actor, tries to navigate the waters of show business without help from Dad or Mom (actor Emily Mortimer).

“I think he was very sensitive to not wanting to feel that he was piggybacking off my or my wife’s reputation,” Nivola says. “Now that he’s sort of established himself after ‘White Lotus,’ some of that pressure may be removed. So now we talk more and more about, ‘Dad, what would you do in this case?’ both on the decision-making side and the creative side of the process.”

Starring roles on Broadway, on television and in last year’s Oscar-winning film, “The Brutalist,” have given the elder Nivola plenty of experience. Mortimer has awards for work in several films and made her directorial debut with the miniseries, “The Pursuit of Love,” and created the series, “Doll & Em.”

Because “White Lotus” was such a huge hit, Sam — who plays Patrick Schwarzenegger’s brother in Season 3 — was wise to seek their counsel.

Conversely, Nivola didn’t need to return the favor when deciding what to wear to the premiere of “Love Story.”

Calvin Klein’s company dressed him for a premiere in the 1990s, and “I had the tuxedo down in my basement collecting dust,” he says. “I brushed it off, popped it on and it fit me like a glove.”

Calvin Klein in Calvin Klein? Of course.