Alessandro Nivola "tried to talk" his son Sam Nivola out of pursuing an acting career.

The Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale star has admitted that he wasn't best pleased when Sam, 22, told him that he was dropping out of Columbia University to try his luck in the acting profession.

Alessandro, who has Sam with his wife Emily Mortimer, told People: "I didn't want him to leave. I tried to talk him out of it and he would have none of it.

"And I think it was really the moment that I just threw up my hands and said, 'Sam, you know, I just want you to be happy', that we really started to get along."

Alessandro has recalled how Sam - who starred in the third season of The White Lotus - dropping out of college was the moment he "really announced" to his parents that he was serious about acting.

The 53-year-old star said: "Since then, it's just been great, and I've watched him go from strength to strength.

"And you know if there's one thing that I think he's really benefitted from growing up with two actors... it's just having spent so much time on sets and watching us do stuff like this.

"So, when it sort of started to come to him, it wasn't a novel experience. He'd at least had a glimpse of it as a very young guy."

Alessandro previously suggested that he and his pal Ethan Hawke were planning to make movie that would star both of their sons as younger versions of themselves.

The Brutalist star said: "Ethan Hawke and I have been cooking up this movie called Satan Is Real about a pair of brothers called the Louvin Brothers.

"And then we were thinking that now that Sam and (Ethan's son), Levon Hawke, are becoming stars, that the best way for us to green light the movie will be to write in a section that has us as younger versions."

Meanwhile, Sam previously revealed that he was glad not to have relied on parents to get acting jobs.

Asked about being a "nepo baby", he told Variety: "Other than my genes, I don't think I can attribute much of my success to my parents. I feel proud that I've done it for myself, and sometimes in spite of them.

"[With my first role] I didn't get my dad's agent to call up so-and-so. I did it by myself. I didn't want to give anyone an excuse to be able to say that anything I've achieved has been because of anyone other than me. And I'm proud of that."