Connie Britton Breaks Down “Jarring” Transformation for Phony Role

Connie Britton didn’t phone it in for Phony.

In fact, both prosthetics and visual effects were used on the actress to distort her appearance in the Hulu mystery, which centers on a teenager (Sam Nivola) who believes his mom (Britton) has been replaced by a doppelgänger when he wakes up from a near-death car accident.

“It was actually quite a process,” Britton exclusively shared with E! News’ Will Marfuggi. “It ended up being sort of a combination of various different techniques, because it had to be so subtle but also consistent for an extended period of time.”

While her physical transformation was “makeup-based” at first, the 59-year-old said a VFX team was eventually brought in to “paint in, frame-by-frame” subtle changes to her face as the story’s mystery deepened.

The result? A “very subtle but noticeable enough” difference that provided a sense of eeriness to her character.

“It’s very jarring for me to see,” Britton said of the final product. “When I look at it, I’m either ‘I look freakish’ or ‘I look like myself. Does it even look different?'”

And for her onscreen son Nivola, the transformation was an “uncomfortable” one.

Indeed, Nivola—whose parents are The Newsroom alum Emily Mortimer and Love Story star Alessandro Nivola—is quite familiar with Britton’s stacked resumé. After all, they’re both part of The White Lotus family, with Britton starring in season one and Nivola appearing in the latest third season.

“It is interesting because even though we were in different seasons, in different places [and] different casts, there are a lot of similarities,” Britton said. “That’s such a rarefied experience.”

Phony premieres Oct. 20 on Hulu. 

And for more TV shows hitting the small screen soon, read on.