‘Pivotal moment’: Patrick Schwarzenegger on The White Lotus scene that had everyone talking

It’s every actor’s dream: to be given the kind of meaty scene or show that is talked about endlessly, with award nominations and a career automatically set for bigger things.

But for Patrick Schwarzenegger, who plays finance bro Saxon Ratliff in The White Lotus, that career-making moment has had people talking for all the right reasons over a scene that involved an act of sexual intimacy with his on-screen brother, Lochlan.

Stars of The White Lotus, Morgana O’Reilly, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Natasha Rothwell and Leslie Bibb, in Sydney this week.Credit: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

“I was really nervous about it,” says Schwarzenegger, who was in Sydney with fellow White Lotus cast mates Leslie Bibb, Natasha Rothwell and Morgana O’Reilly to promote the launch of new streaming service Max.

“It honestly was a really pivotal moment for Saxon … People were quick to judge him, and he’s someone that you love to hate. And then what happens in [episode] six, and how that impacts him and affects him in [episodes] seven and eight. You see a different side of him.

“It’s been really well received from my side, and it just paints Saxon in a little bit of a different light than it had before. It kind of peels off the onion there.”

In The White Lotus, Mike White’s wild eat-the-rich satire about a holiday from hell in a Thai resort, Saxon is the eldest son in a wealthy family. It’s a scenario Schwarzenegger is more familiar with than most: his dad is Arnold Schwarzenegger and his mum is Maria Shriver, who is the niece of John F. Kennedy. And it was Schwarzenegger’s family that White asked him to draw on for the show.

“There’s similarities in the sense of living in your father’s shadow and working under your dad, and things of that nature that I tried to borrow and take,” says Schwarzenegger. “Especially in episode seven, I have that speech with my dad [where Saxon talks about how closely he is tied personally and professionally to his father], but there’s a lot of differences between Saxon and I … but you can borrow and bring the vulnerability [from yourself].”

Most important, of course, is what do his parents think of the show? Did they see episode six?

“Yeah,” he says, laughing. “They thought it was hilarious, crazy.”

Bibb plays Kate, one of three women on holiday together – “if something’s happening over the toilet, she’s gonna hold your hair,” she says of Kate. “She’s going to get the Imodium.”

Leslie Bibb in Sydney this week. Credit: Getty Images

But for her, what makes White such a master storyteller is that he likes people, despite taking such delicious delight in toying with them on screen.

“He doesn’t judge anybody,” Bibb says. “That’s his thing, that he allows us all to be complicated, and not one thing, which I feel like a lot of people go, ‘Well, this is the role you should play’ or ‘You play one aspect for the overall story’, and he lets all of his characters, but especially women, to be not just one thing, but three-dimensional and be complicated and flawed.”

Sitting next to Bibb is Rothwell, who plays Belinda, one of only two original characters to make it back for season three. During filming, she would sneak down to watch not only Bibb, Michelle Monaghan and Carrie Coon (who play Jaclyn and Leslie) act out their toxic friendship triangle – “it was like chess” – but to watch White as well.

“It’s kind of like masterclass,” says Rothwell. “And … I watch him as a director and writer, because I do that as well, and [then] I snuck down on set to watch their scene [the three women], and I was like, these women, boy oh boy!”

Perhaps having the most fun on The White Lotus is Kiwi actor Morgana O’Reilly, who plays the Ratliffs’ brilliantly wide-eyed Australian concierge, Pam.

She is forever trying to get the Ratliffs to abandon their phones and surrender to the White Lotus’ ways. Her biggest challenge, though, was going up against Jason Isaacs and his “terrifying, steely blue eyes”.

“It’s so what you want,” she says of Isaacs. “He’s so, he’s not like that in real life, and he’s funny and he’s inclusive and joyous, when they are set on you, it’s like ‘whoa’.”

Of course, the real mystery of The White Lotus, to be revealed in Monday’s final episode, is who is the body floating in the lake?

“I can’t say that,” says Schwarzenegger. “I can’t give you any details.”

The only thing he will guarantee is that Saxon is capable of change. “I think that’s what Mike wants the audience to think about,” he says.

As for O’Reilly, the biggest and only guarantee she is prepared to give is that it’s not going to be some big twist like The Sixth Sense. “It was all a dream, so don’t worry,” she deadpans. “Like, no stress, don’t worry, it ends up just being a dream.”

The final episode of The White Lotus streams next Monday on Binge and Max.

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