LOS ANGELES – If you do not know who she is, Nico Parker still might look vaguely familiar.

That is because the 19-year-old – who stars in the new coming-of-age film Suncoast – bears a striking resemblance to her famous mother: English actress Thandiwe Newton, 51, who won an Emmy for playing an android in the dystopian science-fiction drama Westworld (2016 to 2022).

Her father is 54-year-old English film-maker Ol Parker, who directed the musical film Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) and the George Clooney-Julia Roberts romantic comedy Ticket To Paradise (2022).

The young English actress’ first movie role was in the fantasy adventure Dumbo (2019), and she had a supporting part in the hit post-apocalyptic series The Last Of Us (2023).

And Nico Parker welcomes it when her parents critique her performances, she reveals in a Zoom chat with The Straits Times to promote her new film, which premieres on Disney+ on Feb 9.

“They give me professional comments that are specific to the work, and I feel comfortable knowing that they won’t say something’s good just because they’re my parents – they can also give me criticism.

“That’s perfect because it means that when they do give compliments, I feel as if they’re earned, and they’re not just to be nice,” she says of Newton and Ol Parker, who separated in 2022.

Co-starring Laura Linney and Woody Harrelson, Suncoast is a semi-autobiographical tale based on writer-director Laura Chinn’s experience of seeing her terminally ill brother in a Florida hospice in 2005.

It happened to be the same institution housing a dying woman named Terri Schiavo, who became a cause celebre in the right-to-die movement because of the controversial decision to remove her feeding tube.

In the film, Nico Parker plays Doris, a teenager unable to have a normal childhood because her mother Kristine (Linney) is consumed with her brother and his end-of-life care.

But Doris’ perspective on death shifts when she meets Paul (Harrelson), an eccentric activist protesting over the Schiavo case.

Parker had not given much thought to death herself, but conversations with Chinn, a 37-year-old American film-maker, offered valuable insights.

“She was telling me that someone looks incredibly different after they’ve passed away.

“Having life in you does something to your face, and after someone has passed, it looks like a different person.

“I didn’t know that and I thought about it often when it came to filming,” says the actress, who will be one of the leads in the live-action version of the animated hit How To Train Your Dragon (2010), due in cinemas in 2025.

Suncoast is Parker’s first major lead role, and she learnt a lot from her award-winning American co-stars Linney, 60, and Harrelson, 62.

But when asked what she picked up from them, she does not dwell on their acting or anything technical.

With Linney, she was instead most impressed by “how lovely she is on set and treats everyone with the utmost respect”.

“I want to do that and make people feel that way, and be spoken about the way people speak about her with regard to the way she treats others.”

Harrelson is respectful too, “but he’s more of a prankster”, Parker says. “He’s so fun and funny, and we got on really well. We’d have the weirdest conversations and he made me laugh constantly.”

And similarly, when it comes to Newton – known for her roles in action blockbuster Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) and crime drama Crash (2004) – acting techniques and other secrets of the craft are not the main things Parker has learnt.

The pair starred in the sci-fi thriller film Reminiscence (2021) alongside Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson.

“Professionally, I’ve honestly not learnt that much from her – not because there’s nothing to learn but because I think I learn more from her just as my mum,” says the teen, who has a nine-year-old brother and a 23-year-old sister.

“She’s wonderful, but I learn more from how she treats others, how she expects to be treated, and that it’s okay to ask for things and use your voice – and is incredibly okay to others using their voices.

“I learn things from her as my mum that I’d like to think translate into a work environment in a positive way.”

• Suncoast premieres on Disney+ on Feb 9.