When The White Lotus’s Season 3 premiered, there was a lot of noise about Patrick Schwarzenegger and how he was, like, going to be the sexy man-meat of the season. Few people were buying that after the first couple of episodes, where his character Saxon came across like an immature, soulless, finance-bro douchebag. I eyerolled through several of Patrick’s interviews, wondering if he completely misread Saxon. But then something magical happened! Saxon never became the “hot guy,” but Patrick showed that he has genuine acting chops as he navigated Saxon’s tricky and surprisingly moving journey from soulless bro to a guy yearning for love, meaning and purpose. I am now a real fan of Patrick Schwarzenegger, and I hope he continues to get cast in things which show his very real acting talent. Anyway, many White Lotus actors gave interviews after the finale, and Patrick spoke to Variety about everything that went down. Some highlights:
Lochlan describing himself as a “people pleaser”: “The power dynamics between brothers completely changed after Episode 6. Lochlan is really trying to say he’s caught in the middle of everyone in the family, constantly trying to please them. In this case, quite literally. Mike White does such an amazing job writing, and the theme of the season is that you enter the White Lotus as one person and you leave as another. The scene with me and Sam in the finale is kind of a period at the end of a sentence. There’s some kind of closure, even though Saxon can’t confront what happened between them. He can’t look his brother in the eye. He begs to have them live in denial forever. It’s a sweet but odd moment — Lochlan telling his brother that he knows he just wants to get off.
Using some prosthetics for his scenes: “I don’t know that it made it easier, but at the end of the day I’m playing a character. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s not me. I put my trust in Mike, and he’s continuing to push the envelope. I was shocked at how well it worked out. The first four episodes, I had people coming up to me nonstop telling me how much they hated my character. That I was playing such a great douche bag, and all these different things. But that past four weeks, I’ve had people come up saying, “I feel so much for your character. He’s going through so much. I can’t believe I’m rooting for Saxon.” It’s been so cool to see how much the audience has invested.
Saxon watching Chelsea run to Rick on the beach: “It’s longing. Over the last two episodes, he starts to form a more meaningful relationship with Chelsea. She opens him up by giving him books, and he’s exposed to the fact that she believes Rick is her soulmate. She’s really in love, and Saxon doesn’t understand that. He’s always laughing or scoffing at that those things, but he watches her actually run off into the sunset and jump into Rick’s arms. They have this moment, forehead to forehead, and he thinks, “Wow. Maybe this is what I want.” I actually played a version of that scene where it’s full come-to-Jesus, where Saxon is just so sweet to the girls. Mike came up and said, no, he didn’t want me to play it like that. He didn’t want some huge change for Saxon yet — just a small moment and to hold on my face as I watch her go off into the distance.
What he thinks will happen to Saxon & the Ratliff family once they go back to North Carolina: “There’s so much I wish I knew! I just watched the finale. I wonder if Saxon knew that Chelsea died. And when we power our phones on, is that when we know everything about our dad? Mike likes ambiguity. He wants people to have these conversations. He shot two-and-a-half hours for the finale and boiled it down to 90 minutes. That’s already a stretch for HBO to give…It was always scripted how it aired. Mike did say he wanted it to be me who looks to my dad after my phone comes on — because they work together and there are more consequences for Saxon.
What Saxon could do now that his dad is going to prison: “I don’t know that the entire family will ever recover from the shock. I told Mike, they should put out an April Fool’s story that there will be a Ratliff spinoff, like a fake reality show about that. It would be so funny.
The Ratliffs’ story as they head back to America… it would be like Arrested Development, right? Parker Posey was basically doing a version of Jessica Walters’ Lucille Bluth anyway. Timothy Ratliff is just a version of George Bluth and Piper is absolutely a version of Lindsey Bluth-Funke. OMG. Lochlan is BUSTER!! Which makes Saxon a blend of GOB and Michael. Anyway, I’m usually not a “these characters deserve a spinoff” person, but I would absolutely love a Ratliff spinoff where we got to see how Victoria and Piper handle “being poor.”
Today’s quite bittersweet. I teared up last night in the finale… First — because It was this beautiful yet devastating & profound ending – but secondly, because It was also the end of this chapter for me in my life..
White lotus has consumed my life the past 16 months.… pic.twitter.com/0GpNS3ZlT2
— Patrick Schwarzenegger (@PSchwarzenegger) April 7, 2025
Photos courtesy of HBO and Fabio Lovino/HBO/Avalon.
