This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of The White Lotus.
Patrick Schwarzenegger has shut down the suggestion that his current White Lotus storyline is all about “shock value”.
In this week’s instalment of the award-winning US series, Patrick’s character slowly realised that his brother performed a sex act on him after a drug-fuelled night of partying the previous evening.
Naturally, the sex scenes in question have sparked a lot of conversation already, but the actor is adamant that there’s more to the storyline than just “sensationalism”.
“There’s some sensationalism, but then there’s also the stuff behind the wall of the character and what he’s dealing with in the conflict of what just happened,” Patrick told The Hollywood Reporter.
“What is that going to do to who he thinks he is? His thoughts on, what is it like to be a man? What is a man? What makes all these different things that he thought he stood for in the episode and the days before?”
“Mike [White, the creator of The White Lotus] does a great job with my character with that scene, but also in past seasons of always bringing something that is really fun and outrageous and sparks a conversation that gets people talking, but also has to do a lot with the pilgrimage of the characters’ story,” he insisted.
Patrick added: “There’s always more than what just meets the eye of the shock value on the screen.”
His co-star Sam Nivola shared similar sentiments in interviews published around the episode’s release.
“I really don’t [believe the scene is just about shock value],” Sam told Vanity Fair. “I would’ve felt a lot less comfortable shooting it if that’s what it was.
He added: “I have a thing about sex scenes. I hate it when they put sex scenes in shows and there’s no reason, you know what I mean? Especially if it’s just super hot sex that goes really well and they both enjoy it. It’s like, why?”
The White Lotus continues on Monday on Sky and Now in the UK.