How dad Arnold will feel about ‘White Lotus’ nude scenes
Will they check out early?
Patrick Schwarzenegger has a provocative role in Season 3 of “The White Lotus” (premiering Sun. Feb 16 at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max).
Each season of the Emmy-winning HBO dramedy follows a different cast of unhappy rich people on vacation at a branch of the fictional “White Lotus” resort. In Season 3, which is set in Thailand, Schwarzenegger, 31, plays Saxon, a college aged frat boy type who is on the prowl for a vacation fling.
This means he has nude scenes, and during a recent press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills (Il Posto) that The Post attended, Schwarzenegger opened up about how he’ll feel watching those scenes with his famous family.
“There’s some uncomfortable conversations” onscreen and scenes “that are a little weird to show in front of your family,” he said.
“They don’t know anything [about what’s coming up on the show],” he added about his family.
Schwarzenegger’s dad is Arnold Schwarzenegger, 77, and his mom is Maria Shriver, 69. His sister Katherine is also married to Chris Pratt, making the Marvel star his brother-in-law.
They were all in attendance at “The White Lotus” Season 3 premiere on Monday night to support Patrick. At the event, he posed for a rare red carpet photo with his parents, who separated in 2011 and divorced in 2021.
His character, Saxon, is part of a storyline on “The White Lotus” Season 3 that also includes wealthy business exec dad, Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs), drugged-up mom Victoria (Parker Posey) and Saxon’s siblings, Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Lochlan (Sam Nivola).
Schwarzenegger said that when he watches episodes of “The White Lotus” with his family as Season 3 airs weekly on Sundays (9 p.m. on HBO), “there’ll be some times that I take some bathroom breaks when the family [watches].”
He added about his upcoming onscreen nudity, “maybe I won’t watch that episode [with my family]. I don’t know, we’ll see. But, they’re super excited.”
Regarding doing nudity onscreen, he said that he “put a lot of trust” in the show’s creator, Mike White.
“Doing certain nudity stuff, it’s different when it’s a writer director or someone that you don’t know or don’t trust or haven’t seen their work. But, what Mike has done with it in past seasons, and how he always loves to kind of push the envelope and continue to excite…I didn’t have any hesitation towards it.”
When asked if he asked his family for advice about the role, he said, “No, I didn’t actually talk to my family [about the role].”
“I was doing what [creator Mike White] wanted and what was on the page,” he added of his performance. “At first when I was reading it, I was nervous about that – was [Saxon] kind of a one-dimensional just a frat boy douche, or whatever you want to call him.”
After he talked to White about the character, he wanted him to be “that frat kind of southern douche guy, but also really kind of someone that you would laugh at and enjoy watching on the screen, and he had a little bit of a character arc.”
As for Arnold’s reaction to his son going bare?
“What a show!” the “Terminator” actor wrote via Instagram. “I could claim to be surprised to find out he has a nude scene, but what can I say — the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
