Warning: This article contains minor spoilers for the most recent episode of The White Lotus.
It’s very much business as usual in the new season of The White Lotus.
Gorgeous, sun-drenched location? Check. Star-studded cast? Check. New version of the theme tune? Check (although that last one hasn’t quite gone down as well as we imagine producers were hoping).
And finally, full-frontal male nudity right from the word go? Check.
Patrick Schwarzenegger’s action star dad Arnie previously let slip that the Gen V star would be stripping off in the series opener, which proved to be the case when the latest episode began streaming on Monday morning.
Towards the end of the episode, Patrick’s character Saxon was seen making some very inappropriate bedtime conversation with his brother Lochlan (played by Sam Nivola) before heading off to the bathroom completely in the buff for some solo fun to see off the first day of his Thai holiday.
Since the episode debuted, Patrick has already given numerous interviews, and as you can imagine, his big nude scene repeatedly came up in the conversation.
Asked by Vanity Fair if he had any qualms about such a vulnerable in episode one, Patrick insisted: “No, nothing, and there’s more to come!”
“When you’re working with a writer and director and a showrunner and a creator like Mike [White], you put trust in him,” Patrick continued. “When there’s someone like him that’s so brilliant at what he does, you put a different level of trust in someone like that.”
As for what’s next for the Ratliff brothers, he teased: “[Mike White is] setting up just these little Easter eggs of what is odd and off about this family, which is fun.
“The end of the first episode, that scene was one of my favourite scenes. I just thought it was so awkward and brilliant at the same time. And it just showcases who my character is.”
“And then he walks around just naked – it’s like a power shift and a power dynamic between the two of them. And I remember reading that and just being like, ‘what?’,” he added, teasing that the story takes the viewer “way beyond where your imagination would think it would go”.
While Patrick is yet to comment on whether he wore a front prosthetic for his nude scene, he did tell Esquire: “That’s my real butt. No stand-in.”
Past White Lotus stars Steve Zahn and Theo James have both relied on prosthetics for their own nude scenes, with the former claiming he wasn’t even the one wearing the apparatus we see on set.
Episode one of The White Lotus season three is available to stream on Now and Sky, with new instalments coming every Monday, after they air on HBO in the US.