The Untold Truth Of Sarah Catherine Hook

Making its debut in 2021, HBO’s “The White Lotus” was an instant hit, transcending the boundaries of mere TV show to become a bona fide pop cultural phenomenon. The show’s success not only continued but grew when “The White Lotus” returned for its 3rd season in 2025, taking place in Thailand. Boasting a whole new cast — including one-time “queen of the indies” Parker Posey, former nepo baby Patrick Schwarzenegger, and acclaimed actor Walton Goggins – the 3rd season also showcased Sarah Catherine Hook. The up-and-coming actor proved to be a standout as Piper Ratliff, a young woman from a privileged family who shocks her shallow, materialistic parents by revealing she wants to spend a year at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand.

This may be Hook’s highest-profile role to date, but it’s certainly not her first. She’s appeared in a few TV series (and some commercials), but it’s a safe bet that the exposure she’s receiving courtesy of “The White Lotus” will propel her career to the next level and beyond. To find out more about this multitalented star, read on to explore the untold truth of Sarah Catherine Hook.

Had things gone differently, Sarah Catherine Hook would have become famous for her soaring soprano, not her acting chops. Born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, her talent as a singer emerged early on. “I got pretty serious about it around 14, 15 years old,” she revealed in an interview with Glamour. “I started taking voice lessons in high school and really fell in love with classical music and was kind of raised with an appreciation for it.” She began studying voice during high school and was accepted into SUNY Purchase College in New York. There, she was classically trained in opera.

However, acting was also a passion that had always lurked in the background. “I dedicated pretty much all of my time in high school to preparing for college vocal programs,” she told Numéro, explaining that her intention was always to establish herself as a singer and then position herself as an actor. “I knew then if I took acting classes, did summer training programs, I could do pretty much whatever I wanted,” she added. “I’m greedy and wanted, and still want, to do it all.”

As she told Glamour, Hook loved acting so much that she considered dropping out of school to study acting instead of opera, but her mother would not have it. “Normally parents would not encourage their daughter to pursue opera, but they knew there was a bigger plan at play here,” she recalled. “They knew I was very serious about training my voice properly.”

One of Sarah Catherine Hook’s earliest acting gigs was also one of her most prominent: starring in a series of TV commercials for SodaStream, a device that adds carbonation to water, essentially allowing the user to create their own homemade soda and sparkling water. Those commercials utilized her singing voice, with one featuring her (accompanying herself on ukulele) singing about how SodaStream can assist in breaking up with sugary sodas. Another showed her wading through a huge pile of plastic bottles to illustrate how SodaStream can cut down on their use.

That was also the message underlying another 2018 commercial, in which Hook is seen leading a group of people in song, an homage to the iconic Coca-Cola commercial featuring the song, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” As she and the other singers hold beverages in plastic bottles, their song is interrupted by an ailing seagull that lands on a pile of discarded plastic, and then coughs up a plastic bottle cap. Hook and the others are then joined by a sea turtle, carried by “Game of Thrones” actor Thor Björnsson (who won Iceland’s Strongest Man competition six years in a row).

Oddly, the turtle’s head is topped by a familiar-looking mop of unruly hair. That became clear when the CGI-animated critter opens its mouth and begins singing, with the voice of rock icon Rod Stewart emerging to sing “Ocean of Change,” an environmental ballad written for the ad campaign calling for consumers to reduce their reliance on plastic by using SodaStream.

For anyone fortunate enough to meet Sarah Catherine Hook in person, here’s a pointer: do not greet her as Sarah. “‘Sarah Catherine.’ It’s a double name. Just try it,” she wrote in her Instagram bio. “Sarah Catherine is on my birth certificate, and then Campbell is my middle, followed by Hook, my last name,” she explained to Glamour, observing how pretentious all those names can sound. “It is so obnoxious for me. I don’t even want it. I wish it wasn’t my name.”

In fact, Hook considered using her middle name, Campbell, as her professional moniker — but didn’t think she’d be able to handle it if people were to shorten it and refer to her as Cam. “I’m not Cam, I’m not Cami,” she explained.

However, she also conceded that having three names tends to stand out in the acting field, in the manner of fellow three-namers such as Elizabeth Mary Winstead, and “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker. “But I do think [having the three names] looks so strong on screen,” she added. “If it was just Sarah Hook, that’s not very memorable. I like it as a whole, and I think it looks good. But it’s such a burden.”

While playing Piper Ratliff in “The White Lotus” has been a breakout role for Sarah Catherine Hook, she’d already built up a serious fan base thanks to two previous high-profile roles. The first of these was in the 2022 Netflix series, “First Kill,” in which she played a teenage vampire who must kill for the first time in order to cement her status within her undead family. She selects new-in-town teenager Calliope (Imani Lewis) to be her first victim — only to fall in love with her — while also discovering her intended prey is descended from a family of vampire hunters. “How could you not wanna do this show?” she told Collider, revealing she immersed herself in vampire films, movies, and books in preparation for the role.

After the cancellation of “First Kill” after just one season, Hook was cast as manipulative seductress Caroline Merteuil in Amazon’s 2024 “Cruel Intentions” series, taking on the role played by Sarah Michelle Gellar in the 1999 film of the same name. “I was a huge fan of ‘Cruel Intentions’ the film, and I was in seventh or eighth grade when I was introduced to it by a group of cool older girls,” she said in an interview with Town & Country. “When I heard they were doing a TV series, I nearly fell out of my chair.”

When Sarah Catherine Hook lands an acting role, she tends to do a lot of research. She’s also keen to discuss all aspects of her character, which was certainly the case when she was cast as Caroline Merteuil in “Cruel Intentions.” “For Caroline specifically, I leaned heavily on our showrunners, Sara Goodman and Phoebe Fisher,” she told Numéro. “They wanted a stillness, a coolness. I’m a very animated, lively person, so in the beginning they continually had to give me the note ‘Be still.'”

In order to slow herself down enough to exude that outer calmness, she created a mental and physical ritual for herself that she utilized to inhabit Caroline. “In order for me to stop moving so much I had to literally stand still and from the bottom, just zip myself up and zip it back,” she recalled when interviewed for Marie Claire. “As if I was zipping on her cloak, or her essence. That was my little ritual.”

As those who’ve seen both shows can attest, Caroline in “Cruel Intentions” is worlds apart from Piper in “The White Lotus,” and Hook admitted she experienced a sense of psychic whiplash when jumping from one role to the other. “I went from being this blonde bombshell in 6-inch platform heels to playing this very pure, spiritual seeking, Buddhist monk girlie!” she told Who What Wear. “It was a complete 180.”

While some actors dread the process of auditioning for roles, it’s something that Sarah Catherine Hook has not only embraced, but has actually come to thoroughly enjoy. “I loved auditioning in New York, I loved having appointments to go to and the idea of seeing agents,” she explained when interviewed for Marie Claire. “I felt like, ‘Wow, I’m really going for it.'”

When the opportunity arose to be considered for the 3rd season of “The White Lotus,” Hook admitted she felt the pressure. “So just getting the audition alone was huge,” she said. After advancing through the various stages, she learned she’d be speaking directly with series creator Mike White via Zoom. She expected an intense discussion of her character, but when she picked up the phone, White was beyond chill. “He kept being like, ‘Where are you?’ or ‘How was your Christmas?’ and then ‘Listen, I loved your tapes. You’re great! Let’s just do the scene, and if I have any notes, I’ll give them to you. But like, I don’t know … I think you’re great,'” Hook recalled during her interview with Who What Wear.

She performed the scene for White, who offered no feedback, and ended the call shortly after. “Usually, that’s a bad sign,” Hook observed. “I thought, ‘I’m so confused. What just happened?’ That was the weirdest audition I’ve ever had.”

Despite her misgivings about her Zoom audition with series creator Mike White, Sarah Catherine Hook booked the job. When she arrived in Thailand to begin shooting “The White Lotus,” however, it dawned on her that Piper Ratliff was far more like her actual self than any other character she’d portrayed. As she revealed to Glamour, like Piper, she’s the middle child between two male siblings and also experienced a similar spiritual awakening after being introduced to Buddhism in college. “It felt very meta,” she said. “I was playing this girl from the South, a middle girl between two boys, really into spirituality and stuff. I was like, ‘Am I being punked? Did you know that I existed?'”

She wasn’t the only one who recognized the similarities between Piper and her actual self. As she told Cosmopolitan, after watching the season’s 2nd episode, a friend texted her a message to point out how much the two were alike. “‘This is the closest to you I’ve ever seen in any role that you’ve ever played.’ He was like, ‘Even just the way she talks about spirituality, this is just so cool. I feel like you guys were meant to be,'” she recalled.

Appearing in commercials for SodaStream wasn’t just a job for Sarah Catherine Hook, but also allowed her to promote a message about which she felt passionate: the need to minimize plastic waste for the good of the environment. As it turns out, Hook has similar feelings about what she wears, preferring to salvage used clothing than buy new stuff.

“I don’t love shopping for new clothes,” she said when interviewed for Glamour. “I’m a big thrift girl. It’s more sustainable, and it’s ultimately cooler clothes. It’s win-win-win across the board. I do try to be environmentally sound in most ways. I love the planet. I want it to be okay. And I feel like she’s really sick right now.”

In fact, Hook told the magazine that she was hopeful that she’d be able to take a greater role as an activist to combat climate change. “I really want to get more involved with climate change activism,” she added. “I’m so anxious about what is happening. We have to focus on saving our planet because if we don’t have the planet, we don’t even have other problems.”

For a follow-up to her high-profile role in “The White Lotus,” Sarah Catherine Hook was next cast in another big-league project: a Netflix movie based on Emily Henry’s bestselling novel, “People We Meet on Vacation.” While details about the character she’s playing in the film hadn’t been revealed, she’s part of a cast that includes Lukas Gage, Tom Blyth, Alan Ruck, Jameela Jamil, Molly Shannon, Emily Bader, and Lucien Laviscount. Without spilling any spoilers, she discussed her role with Cosmopolitan. “I actually really enjoyed playing that character because she was my age, and I never get to play someone my age,” said Hook. “So it was nice to play an adult for once.”

She offered a bit more when speaking with Glamour, describing her character being extremely likable. “She’s really easygoing and very naturally beautiful, kind of girl-next-door vibes,” she said. “Great, great film. I’m excited to see it.” According to Hook, it’s her co-stars who do the heavy lifting, comparing her role to that of a TV guest star. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t have to worry about carrying anything. I’m just here wearing pretty clothes and acting with good actors in a beautiful setting.’ It’s a treat,” she added.

Throughout her career, Sarah Catherine Hook has been compared to another female actor who hails from the South. “My whole life I’ve gotten Reese Witherspoon,” she told Glamour. “I don’t feel like I look like her as much anymore, but in high school it was like, ‘Oh my God, you look like her.'” With her hair dyed blonde for “Cruel Intentions,” she was told she resembled child-actor-turned-Oscar-winner Brie Larson, while she’s also been told she looks like Cailee Spaeny and Denise Richards.

However, it’s the Witherspoon comparisons that have always been the most prevalent. “Everyone has always said that I look like her and I have always been compared to her for so long,” Hook said in an interview with Women’s Wear Daily. That, she explained, was what made it all the more surprising when, after being approached about “Cruel Intentions,” she assumed she’d be going for the role played by Witherspoon in the 1999 film — only to learn producers had her in mind for another character. “My whole life, everyone’s said I look like Reese Witherspoon, but when I heard they wanted to see me for the Sarah Michelle Gellar role, that was a twist,” she told Town & Country.

Sarah Catherine Hook grew up in a tight-knit family, and she remains close with her parents and her siblings. As she told Marie Claire, her parents have been a source of encouragement for her entire life. “Since I was little they’ve been so supportive of my dreams, and I know a lot of people don’t have that luxury so I definitely acknowledge how privileged I am,” she said. “I’m so thankful, because I don’t think I would be here without their support, honestly.”

In fact, she revealed that she was actually with her parents when she found out that she was cast as Piper in “The White Lotus,” and they shared her excitement at landing her most prestigious acting role yet. “My mom — like, we were just doing a little dance,” she recalled. “That was so cute. It’s just so insane. I don’t even think there are any words that could match the craziness of it. It was just amazing.”

With her love of thrift-store fashion finds, Sarah Catherine Hook has established her own niche in the world of style. When asked by Marie Claire to identify her biggest “style icon” at the moment, she didn’t hesitate in singling out Jennifer Lawrence, an actor who’s experienced a stunning transformation. “She’s this timeless, beautiful, elegant, sophisticated queen — I’ve been so here for her fashion choices,” Hook gushed. “Every time I see her, I’m like, ‘That is just a sparkling jewel.’ She looks incredible, but is also so unapologetically herself.”

Admittedly, finding her own fashion individuality wasn’t something that came easily to her. “It took me a long time to appreciate fashion in the way that I do now,” she told Numéro. “Shopping was always such a miserable and painful experience for me. I didn’t like how I looked in clothes, especially outfits that were ‘in style.'” According to Hook, it’s been in thrift stores where she really began gaining confidence in expressing herself through clothing, allowing her the freedom to figure out what clothing worked for her, and what didn’t. “Thrifting has become one of my favorite activities and I now find joy in shopping for pieces that accentuate the parts that I love about my body, clothes that really compliment my figure and make me feel beautiful and confident,” she declared.