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“I want to tell everybody everything…so that I’m not this guy,� he says.

In “Tell Me Lies,� a Hulu drama about a relationship over the course of eight years, White plays Stephen, a seemingly honest college student who falls for Lucy, a freshman, played by Grace Van Patten. The two engage in a relationship and, then, there are other close encounters that prompt both to lie. Repeatedly.

“I think they’re using the coping methods they’ve had since they were young,� White says. “I don’t think they’re bad people. They’re just trying to operate in the only way they know how.�

Adds Van Patten: “The first year of college is the chance for everyone to reinvent themselves and find themselves. I think that’s exactly what they’re doing. They feel like they’re finding themselves in each other.�

An accident heightens things and accelerates the steam. “Tell Me Lies,� in fact, features plenty of close encounters of the R-rated kind. Both actors say they were nervous about the scenes but trusted the producers.

“Jackson and I were so comfortable with each other instantly,� Van Patten says. “We talked about (those scenes) with (producers Karah Preiss and Meaghan Oppenheimer). Knowing exactly what the dynamic was made it feel very safe.�

Thanks to those early discussions, there was a level of trust that carried throughout the 10-episode series, White says. “It was just really natural, really comfortable, really communicative.�

Because there was an intimacy coordinator to guide them, there wasn’t any surprise in the way those scenes played out. Kreiss says to make it look seamless and sexy onscreen, “it has to be incredibly unsexy in shooting.�

White says it’s like “doing a dance number that you don’t know the steps to. You have to choreograph it.�

When she first read the script (based on Carola Lovering’s bestseller), Van Patten worried about the exposure. “But I felt like every scene was so necessary to the story and to these characters,� she says. “Every intimate scene said something about their dynamic. I think that’s really real, especially in a college relationship – you know, being sexually awakened and mistaking the desire and passion for love.�

While most of the characters seem like they’re majoring in relationships, they go through an eight-year cycle that reveals the truth about their pasts and their families.

Lucy, Van Patten says, is “probably the more destructive liar…but she learned from the best. If you’re dishonest, you’re dishonest.�

Interestingly, White's mother, actress Katey Sagal, appears in the miniseries.

“It was intimidating,� he says, “because I didn’t want to be so passive/aggressive to her. I think we’re pretty good friends and I realized that it was hard to be so mean to each other.�

Like Van Patten – who’s the daughter of director Timothy Van Patten and the granddaughter of actor Dick Van Patten – he was encouraged to pursue anything but acting. “She did say that I had to wait until I was 18 if I wanted to do it,� he says. “And I’m pretty grateful for that. I had to grow up a little bit before I got into this thing.�

Van Patten says she heard the same lectures and relatives “tried to steer me away from it as long as possible. But I think that’s how they knew and I knew that I really wanted to do it.�

Lucy, she says, taught her plenty. “Being vulnerable and open is the coolest thing ever. It’s the most powerful thing. That was a big change in my life – it changed my relationships with people.�

Likewise, White. “I’m such a sharer of feelings. I have to externalize and vocalize what’s going on. Stephen is so the opposite – he’s intellectualizing everything. He’s calculating everything and I am just the opposite. I’m like a big puddle.�

Preiss says many lessons can be learned from the series. “When you don’t share what you’re going through with the people around you, you’re hurting yourself more than you’re benefitting yourself,� she says “If you just talk to people about things, it doesn’t have to be such a big deal.�

“Tell Me Lies� begins Sept. 7 on Hulu.