Jackson White Says His Toxic Tell Me Lies Character ‘Doesn’t Shock Me Ever’ (Exclusive)

Even Jackson White can’t decide if he loves or hates his Tell Me Lies character.

White, 28, plays Stephen DeMarco, the toxic and calculating love interest to Grace Van Patten’s Lucy Albright on the Hulu series, and the actor tells PEOPLE that it’s “fun” taking on the controversial role.

“It’s really cool, playing a bad guy. It’s really fun,” he says. “You just get new stuff to do every time. It’s a blast.”

Now that he has two seasons under his belt, the actor has a pretty high tolerance for what his love-to-hate character is capable of. After all, at the end of season 1, fans were shell-shocked to learn that in the future, Stephen was engaged to Lucy’s childhood best friend, Lydia (Natalee Linez).

As far as what’s to come this season from the master manipulator, White says, “I don’t know if I was shocked, because he doesn’t shock me ever. The worse it is, the more I understand it. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I get it.'”

He has his challenges, though. “The hardest part about playing him is toeing that line of trying to be genuine, but saying these really f—ed up things. That’s hard.”

“I think, honestly, I try to bring a lot of levity to him this year. It’s a heavy thing to carry all those things he’s got in his brain. I wanted to show that,” White continues. “It was really important to me that we show — Why do these people stay around this guy? Wouldn’t they just say ‘f— off’ if he was doing all these things?”

“So I tried — I don’t know if I succeeded — but I tried to bring some levity to show that yeah, your manipulative friend is also sometimes your funny friend. He’s not going anywhere, but something’s wrong with him.”

In season 2, White teases that Stephen is “building to something” as he promises even more of his signature toxicity and conniving when it comes to Lucy. “He’s going, man. He’s a shark. I love him, though.”

White does admit, though, that stepping back into the role was a challenge — particularly, since he and Van Patten are now dating in real life.

“It was super weird. It was hard. It was like, we put these people away for a while, [so] taking them back out was a little hard, but really fun,” he recalls. “We knew exactly how to do it. The first couple days of it, I was sweating and nervous. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. There’s a camera here. I can’t do this.’ And then by the first week or two you’re like, ‘Oh, cool, this is fun.’ Then, you know how to say what he’s going to say. He’s just really serious and intense and it’s fun. It is fun.”

Following season 1, White told PEOPLE he’s the “very opposite” of the character he plays on Tell Me Lies. “I’m very talkative and really emotional, really a puddle. I share everything and talk about everything, and [Stephen] is very locked in and stoic.”

“His survival mechanism is to keep everything in, don’t show anyone your cards, and I show everyone every card, almost to a fault,” he added.

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The first two episodes of season 2 of Tell Me Lies premieres Sept. 4, followed by weekly releases through Oct. 16.