Warning: Spoilers for “The White Lotus” below!
“The White Lotus” wrapped its third season on Sunday, but for many viewers, the series’ climax might well have been the March 23 episode, which saw brothers Saxon and Lochlan Ratliff (played by Patrick Schwarzenegger and Sam Nivola) engage in an incestuous threesome with Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon).
Appearing on “The Tonight Show” Thursday, Schwarzenegger spoke about filming his steamy, albeit troubling, scenes with Nivola, and shared how his real-life fiancée, model Abby Champion, felt about his on-screen hookups.
“My fiancée was nagging me nonstop when I booked the role,” Schwarzenegger recalled to host Jimmy Fallon.
When the actor refused to reveal which of this season’s characters die, he said Champion began needling him over whether his role would involve any sex scenes.
“She was like, ‘Just tell me if you get with people.’ And I said, ‘Yes, I do,’” he recalled. “And she was like, ‘Who? Which girls do you get with?’ I was like, ‘I can’t tell you.’”
Schwarzenegger said Champion was both shocked and relieved when she learned the truth.
“She was like, ‘You got with your brother?!’ She’s like, ‘You should have told me that way earlier. We would have had no fights,’” he quipped.
Schwarzenegger’s co-stars have previously dropped a few behind-the-scenes tidbits about how the much-buzzed-about tryst came together with the help of intimacy coordinators.
“It was very weird kissing Patrick because he’s a really good friend of mine. And, you know, I’m straight, he’s straight,” Nivola told Variety last month. “It’s already weird. It would have been easier if that was the first time we were meeting. Weirdly, it was easier to do things with Charlotte because there were no stakes. It’s just this person I’ve just met. But Patrick was already like a brother to me. It felt sort of fucked up.”
As for Le Bon, she said that Saxon’s less-than-ecstatic reaction when Lochlan kisses him was Schwarzenegger’s “genuine reaction.”
“We all thought he was going to throw up. And Sam was like, “It’s fine, it’s just a kiss, calm down!” she recalled to Vulture.
Though “The White Lotus” has been known to spotlight LGBTQ+ themes across its three seasons, Nivola said what happened was not meant to clarify the characters’ sexualities in any way.
“Lochlan has such a one-track mind. He wants love and attention — it could be from a guy, it could be from a girl,” he told Variety. “I don’t think he knows what he’s attracted to yet. If he finds out he’s attracted to men after this season, then it will probably become a problem, given his family being rich, conservative Southerners. But at this time, that’s not what’s going through his head.”
Schwarzenegger and Champion got engaged in December 2023. Appearing on “The Drew Barrymore Show” last month, the actor recalled landing his role on “The White Lotus” just days after he popped the question.
Fortunately, the unexpected postponement wasn’t an issue. Champion is “a huge fan” of the show, Schwarzenegger said, before adding that the pair will marry this summer.
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Watch a clip of Patrick Schwarzenegger’s “Tonight Show” chat below.
