Filming a White Lotus sex scene — especially an incestuous threesome — comes with some surprising challenges.
Sam Nivola broke down his process during his Wednesday, March 26, interview with Elite Daily, saying, “I didn’t realize how exhausting it is to have fake sex. I was sort of doing a one-armed plank, with my other hand jerking off Patrick. It was like doing weight lifting with your right arm while you do a plank, and it lasted for such a long time.”
The actor, 21, revealed it “took a couple hours to film,” adding, “At one point, I was on the verge of passing out.” In a separate interview, Patrick Schwarzenegger weighed in on the shocking scene between the fictional brothers, saying, “They can’t take their eyes off of it. Everyone’s going to have an opinion. It’s so despicable, yet entertaining and fun.”
Season 3 of The White Lotus, which premiered in February, took Us by surprise with the confusing undertones between siblings Lochlan (Nivola) and Saxon (Schwarzenegger). From them discussing their porn preferences to Saxon walking around their room naked to the eventual threesome, Nivola and Schwarzenegger have acknowledged the controversial story line.
“When I got the part, I remember talking to Patrick Schwarzenegger, and one of his audition scenes was the scene with Chloe [Charlotte Le Bon] where she’s like, ‘Your brother jerked you off last night. You don’t remember?’ And he’s like, ‘No, I totally blacked out.’ So he told me that, and I was like, ‘Weird … I wonder what that’s all about,’” Nivola told Variety on Sunday, March 23. “Then we both had to sign in our contracts that we were comfortable with nude scenes on camera. Then we got the scripts about a week later, and I read all of them in one sitting, on the plane to Thailand.”
He added: “We all just trusted each other, and that dynamic worked well. In the scene, Patrick and I are brothers, with this girl who we just met, like, the day before.”
Nivola called it “very weird” kissing Schwarzenegger, 31. “I’m straight, he’s straight. It’s already weird. It would have been easier if that was the first time we were meeting,” he noted. “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 f—ed up.”
As for Schwarzenegger, he teased a wild end to the season that he doesn’t plan to watch with his famous parents, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. “I think some upcoming episodes I’m going to watch without them,” he mentioned on The Drew Barrymore Show. “[I] would definitely take a bathroom break [if things get too awkward]. The next episodes, they’re crazy.”
Patrick admitted that “it was a little nerve-wracking watching the first episode with my whole family because I do take some clothes off.”
New episodes of The White Lotus air on HBO Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
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