At a Glance
- Katey Sagal reprises her role as Stephen DeMarco’s mother in Tell Me Lies season 3, released January 13 on Hulu
- The cameo is limited to a phone-call scene; the actors did not share set time
- White, 29, says the brief voice-only reunion was “great”
Why it matters: Fans of the Hulu drama get a nostalgic callback linking season 1 to the new episodes, even if the on-screen family interaction is minimal.
Katey Sagal slipped back into the role of Stephen DeMarco’s mother for the third season of Tell Me Lies, though her return is so fleeting it almost passes unnoticed. The new batch of episodes debuted on January 13, picking up story threads from the intense college drama that first paired the 71-year-old actress with her real-life son, Jackson White.
A Voice-Only Reunion
In season 1 Sagal appeared on camera as the tough-minded parent to White’s complicated character. Season 2 left her out entirely. Season 3 reverses course, but only via a brief phone call.
Stephen phones home to ask about his sister Sadie, who is on the verge of losing her college scholarship. He also wants to know if he can visit the family. His mother refuses the request.
White tells News Of Losangeles he never actually interacted with his mom during filming. “We didn’t work together,” he says. Instead, an assistant director named Steve stood in on the opposite end of the line while White delivered his side of the conversation. “He was like, ‘No, son, I don’t think it’s a good idea that you come home.’ That was my mom – Steve,” the actor recalls with a laugh.
From Stage to Screen
The two have shared a stage before – just not as actors. Sagal noted on Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s MeSsy podcast that they have sung together publicly, yet Tell Me Lies season 1 marked their first joint acting project. “It was really fun for us,” she said during the 2025 episode. “We have a super close relationship.”
She also joked about the dynamic the show creates: “He’s a psycho on the show, like with no conscience. So then his mother gets to be even worse, so that you end up having sort of sympathy for his character, ’cause you realize where he came from.”
Sagal was quick to clarify reality. “We are not like psycho mom and son. And it was really fun to put on different clothes to be these different people.”
Steering Clear of the ‘Nepo Baby’ Label
White, who carries a different last name than his mother, has tried to keep the family connection low-key. According to Sagal, “He hates that whole ‘nepo baby’ thing. He didn’t lean into any of that. A lot of people don’t know that he’s my kid, and he takes a lot of pride in that.”
The acting path did not come with parental encouragement at first. White remembers Sagal urging him to “do something else” and barring him from auditioning until he turned 18. “I wasn’t allowed to act until I was 18. I had to grow up first,” he told News Of Losangeles during season 1 publicity. He admits he “didn’t listen” to the advice.
Key Takeaways
- Katey Sagal returns to Tell Me Lies only by voice, preserving a thread between seasons
- Jackson White values even the indirect collaboration, calling it “great to hear her voice”
- Despite minimal shared screen time, the cameo keeps the DeMarco family backstory alive for viewers
