Extended Interview: Patrick Schwarzenegger

There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the pass?

That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. Now streaming. Everyone who comes into this clinic is a mystery. We don't know what we're looking for. Their bodies are the scene of the crime. Their symptoms and history are clues. You saved your life. We're doctors and we're detectives. I kind of love it if I'm being honest. Solve the puzzle. Save the patient. Watson. All episodes now streaming on Paramount+. This is Jane Pauley.

When your father's name is Schwarzenegger and your mom is a Kennedy, it's perhaps no surprise when you end up in the spotlight. Which brings us to Lee Cowan's interview with actor Patrick Schwarzenegger. you know that young fellow in the popular series the white lotus so i guess the best place to start is what's what's this ride been like for you ever since White Lotus ended or I guess since you were cast. Yeah, it started, the roller coaster started pretty much when I first auditioned.

Yeah. And then kind of the anxiety of waiting to get the call back and then doing the call back and then, you know, waiting to find out if I got it and then getting it and then going to Thailand to actually film it was a whole other. experience and then um it's just been a whirlwind it's been um you know some of the best months of my life yeah um it's been um you know it's a it's a dream come true and it's i mean just you know

White Lotus, getting engaged, your name out there everywhere. I mean, the last several months have been... Pretty amazing. It's one of those years that you're going to mark down as one of the best. Yeah. I mean, it was a mix of last year. You know, I got engaged. I guess I got engaged two years ago now. You know, that was like, I mean, I got engaged.

did the audition and I found out I got the role all in and Christmas within like a week so it was like you know they say things come in three so it was that was a really great week and then the next year filming it and then this year for it to actually come out and be promoting it it's been And yeah, it's been a whirlwind. From all the praise that you've gotten for the role, what do you think? Do you think this is your best performance of your career so far?

Well, look, I think that it's definitely the show that's gotten watched the most. So, you know, it gets watched by both critics and by the masses, by the audience. um you know i've been fortunate to be involved in some really great projects um you know the staircase was one that was really a dramatic character and role and series and i got to play opposite you know colin firth and juliet binoche and tony collette Michael Stuhlbar, all these incredible Emmy and Oscar winning actors and actresses.

you know that was really incredible and gen v with the with the boys um that had a big fan base as well but this this white lotus is something that kind of touches you know the drama side it touches the comedic side it's something that's watched by a lot of the insiders like i was saying and people in the industry and then also by the masses so you get you kind of get

judged in a way that I've never been judged before. But what do you think in terms of... It's weird to watch yourself, you know? I don't know. I mean, you're always like, anytime you do... work you're always there's part of you and you're a little self-conscious of uh you know is this believable is this am i doing a good job am i not but really i think you know i just i put all the trust into mike white and you know he

he can bring out a performance in all the different actors and actresses that I don't think people have seen before. And that's the beauty of working with someone like him. And you're putting his words, you know, on the screen. particularly proud of this one? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very proud. I'm very proud of the whole series to just be involved in it. I'm proud of my work. I'm proud of my castmates work.

Yeah, it's really cool to be part of a series that you enjoy watching and that also your friends and your family really enjoy watching. To that point, your dad had said that there were times when... he didn't even recognize you in the role, which when he said that to you, you were kind of like, wow, really? What does that mean to you?

that you were that deep in the character bit? Well, I think it's good that he didn't recognize that because the character is, you know, a little out there and different. So it'd be a little bit alarming if he didn't recognize a lot of this. those characteristics and parts about Saxon. But yeah, I mean, that's our goal.

as an actor you know is to go and place ourselves into someone else's shoes and into their lives and to try to you know transform into to someone we're not when it came to the show itself you like everybody else started watching it, I guess, the first season during the pandemic, right? Yeah. Did you get hooked on it, just like everybody else? Oh, yeah, we were hooked. We were hooked. I mean, it was...

I think the first season came out 2020 or 2021. I can't remember, but it was during that kind of COVID time period. And it was me, Abby, my fiance and my mom. We lived together, us three. During the pandemic. You can imagine how fun that was. And then they were always like, my mom and my sister was always like, why aren't you in? You need to be in the show. You need to audition. This is such a perfect thing, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then finally, the third season I got to be part of.

Tell me about your audition, because it sounds like you weren't really given anything other than, what, a sentence of what Saxon was supposed to be? Yeah, it was one sentence. It said, Saxon Ratliff. He is a southern finance bro that flirts with anything. I think that was the sentence. That was it. That was it.

what did you do for that first audition if you're to describe it it sounds pretty funny yeah it was uh well i've said this before my brother-in-law chris pratt had told me that uh with self-tapes you know it's within the first couple seconds the casting director has will be able to know are you kind of the vibe and the idea of of the character they're looking for the wording was that he flirted with anything so i just took the first few seconds and just kind of

you know, what we call, I don't want to say something inappropriate. Yeah. Yeah, you know, stared at the camera in a in a loving way. Yeah, and I just kind of was... taking a moment to flirt and and hit on the camera and have this kind of weird sexual tension moment that was very awkward but kind of creepy but funny what um you kept uh

During this whole process, you kept it secret from everybody except your fiancé, right? No, she didn't know anything. She didn't know anything. No. So when did you decide to tell everybody that you got it? Oh, when I got it. I told them a few days after I got it. Yeah.

Because at first I was like really nervous to tell anyone. And then I told my fiance because we had just gotten engaged and we were going to go start planning our wedding for that summer. And then that's when I had to say, hey, I booked my Lotus. going to be gone for seven months. Jeez, that's an awkward conversation. I had to smooth that over, yeah. It strikes me that Saxon could have been kind of a one-note character. Yeah. Right?

Did you have any reservations? Because he was... Yes. The way he was? I did. I did. um i remember talking with my friend and my and abby my fiance at the time when i booked the role and i started to read the first you know couple episodes and it was my mistake to kind of

judge the character off of the first couple episodes, which a lot of people ended up doing. I was worried. Yes, I was worried. I was worried about how was I going to... play this character with some some depth and some different levels and and how do you you know I Didn't want him to come off as just this one note character

Because I've read where people come up to you and they're like, man, I hate you. Yeah. Which is a compliment because they love your performance. But was there ever a time you think, God, do I really want to play a guy that's going to come off as such a... Yes. Well, there's there's times in my life now where it's a conscious like choice of where do I want to go next? Right.

which is something completely different and i don't want to do that exact type of character again i mean i never want to do something you know too similar but um it never crossed my mind of i'm not going to do this show or I'm not going to do this because of the character or whatever, you know. You just knew you had to be careful. Yeah, I just knew that I had to, I just had to find ways to show a little bit of an arc and work with Mike and, you know.

make some small choices from the actor's side to showcase that. But this is also a show that is, like Mike always said, people like to watch these characters. They love to hate them. And it's what brings people, you know, laughter and joy. And I mean, it's part of the overall theme of the show of kind of rooting for some of these people to go down the drain. You know, it's just it's part of it's part of the fun.

yeah tell me about some of the some of the things that you you did to become saxon were a lot of them were just little things yeah that you kind of did like you've talked about when you get out of the pool and you walk by the girls tell me about some of those and on our first day filming you know the first day we filmed it was episode one and I'm getting out of the pool

And I said on the page it wrote that Saxon was swimming in the pool, swimming laps in the pool. And I kind of said to Mike, hey, do you think it'd be fun if I could do, we had the camera just right here and only showed the eyes. and it made it kind of like a crocodile shark type of a feel and it made it look more you know suspicious and kind of creepy and weird that he was kind of checking out the people at the pool just through here and he liked that.

And then it read that, you know, Saxon gets out of the pool and goes to his lounge chair next to Chelsea, who is Amy Liu. And I remember doing that the first time, and I'm walking out, and I go, and I just kind of grab myself, and I adjust myself while looking over at Amy Liu in kind of a, you know.

In a flirting way. And I sit down and then I'm sitting there and I'm talking with my brother about how these long plane rides make me so horny and all this. And I'm kind of playing with myself and minding myself. And I just remember Mike. coming over and he was like did you did you just do what i think you did did you just play did you just adjust yourself mid-scene did you just play with yourself mid-scene and i was like uh yeah is that

Is that okay? He was like, that's Saxon, that's perfect. And I was like, okay, so Mike's cool with me messing around a little bit and adding some characteristics to the character. But honestly... Some other things that I did to kind of make Saxon was, I mean, just how I'm sitting here today, I was having dinner with Parker Posey, and Parker was kind of sitting there at dinner, and she was like, what are you...

what part of your body does Saxon lead with? And I was like, I don't know, actually, I think. And she was like, well, you have to have a body part that you... you're leading with and i was like okay then i made the conscious decision i was like i think saxon would lead with his his private part and she was like that's perfect that's perfect honey and she grabbed my knee

and she was like that's just that's that's exactly right that's that's my boy and i was like okay and uh and so i decided that that was just one of the things you know how he sat he sat very up upright And there were moments of with us at the dinner table when I was upright and sitting like this, you know, I would be kind of checking, flexing and checking his muscles or I would be doing this.

peck flex and stuff and mike thought those things were so funny so he would take moments to kind of film those or how he walked you know that was a thing that mike always there was a joke because he was always like you don't look like you're rich you're not walking rich you're not walking rich enough

Aren't you a Schwarzenegger? Aren't you a Kennedy? Aren't you rich in real life? You don't look like you're rich at all. And I was like, well, I don't know what that means to walk rich. He was like, walk richer. And I was like, okay. So I started walking more like this Conor McGregor character that had this very like, you know, just.

this this physicality about him um you know and then there there are other team members there that help a lot hair and makeup you know they made decisions to make him very put together in the beginning with his tucked in shirt and the belt and the khaki shorts and the salmon shirt and the Gucci loafers. And then as the course of the season went on, he was more disheveled and darker colors and more normal clothing as the...

season went on and i know you've been asked about this a million times but the the scene on the boat that was kind of breaking some taboos i think right because it wasn't just a sex scene it was you know incest whatever you want to Right. Did you have any concerns about that? Of course. You had to jump in, I guess, with both feet. Otherwise, it wouldn't have worked. Yeah. I think when you sign on to do the White Lotus, you're jumping in.

you know head first you're really just like let's do it you know you don't know where it's gonna go um i mean you know when i was auditioning they had said are you okay with you know performing things sexually are you okay being nude at times and you know all those different things so I knew an idea of where it could go I didn't know to what extent

the show would go. But again, you just you trust Mike. You know, he's a brilliant writer. Everything that he does is adding to the character storyline or to the overall storyline. And yeah, I mean, I was nervous, nervous to film that, nervous for the perception how it was going to go over with audiences. You know, it's definitely pushing the envelope and it's definitely.

you know, out there, but so was White Lotus. The main thing that happened with that scene was it was the change for Saxon. That was the first time that we kind of saw the power dynamic shift. change and it was a really great moment for me because that allowed my character to be a it allowed me to play a different version of Saxon and that's where we saw a lot of the character arc and change start to happen was right there

And then afterwards on the boat the next morning and him just kind of internalizing all of this, oh, my God, who am I? You know, and a lot of White Lotus, what it's about is this, especially with Buddhism, is kind of like. your birth and and death and being reborn again and that's kind of like that midpoint in the season where a lot of people's egos or who they thought they were are dying and you're being reborn again into this new version of yourself and that's what happened with my character

You know, who he thought he was was completely destroyed. And now he was having to figure out, who am I? you know and everything he he he thought he was and and walking into the white lotus the most confident the most sure of himself you know always telling other people the girls of how to be or telling his little brother his sister what they need to do in life and you know he's got everything figured out

Now everything has been turned on its head. And so it was a, I guess I looked at that scene as a, of course it was nerve wracking, but it was also a beautiful moment to try to play a different performance. Well, you did it well. I mean, I don't know how you did it, but it was amazing. We'll have more from our Sunday morning extended interview after this break.

There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the pass?

That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. Now streaming. Everyone who comes into this clinic is a mystery. We don't know what we're looking for. Their bodies are the scene of the crime. Their symptoms and history are clues. You saved your life. We're doctors and we're detectives. I kind of love it if I'm being honest. Solve the puzzle. Save the patient. Watson. All episodes now streaming on Paramount+.

Acting is what you want to do or was it more of kind of a slow burn? There was definitely moments in life where I thought that I wanted to do, yeah, that I wanted to be an actor. But there wasn't like a moment that... There wasn't a specific moment, but I think that I, I mean, I'm trying to remember if there was a, I remember going to the set with my dad and just falling in love with the film, with the world. And I loved...

Going with my dad, it was just like the most fun experience for me and probably for any kid to go to set. Oh, and just seeing him transform into so many different... Yeah, seeing him transform into these different characters and then going in and... and you're in these studios. I just remember being in love with all of that. I mean, I didn't probably understand what acting was at that time, but that's what opened me up to that world. And then I did plays in lower school.

and then in in high school and then i started to get more involved and go to you know after college and get into theater classes and get into real you know acting intensive classes and and um and actually get my feet wet on set. And that's where I, you know, really made the decision. How often would you go to set? Your dad said somebody who's just come pick you up from school? All the time. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. Whenever I, I mean.

Whenever I was allowed to. Sometimes he would pick me up even when I wasn't allowed to. But yeah, it was like, yeah, it was the best. And we'd go do homework in the trailer during certain times. He would always set up these math questions and problems and all these different homework assignments for us in the trailer and with my friends. That's so cool. You've made it a point, really, to carve your own path.

That seems like it must have taken a lot of sort of a lot of thought and a lot of kind of figuring out exactly how to do that, how to carve your own path. Yeah.

It does. It takes, yeah. I'd say it does. I mean, I just made the conscious decision of not wanting to work with my dad, really. He didn't even want to use his... agents or anything right yeah i didn't want to i didn't want to it was more for just me personally wanting to feel like i was making strides and learning and growing without him i mean i always know that there's you know

My last name there's connections. There's you know things that are gonna help me but I just yeah, I didn't want to I Wanted to try to take a different path than that More I guess fulfilling was what it was really down to But I'd love to work with him at some point. Early on, did you ever think about acting under a different class name?

I thought about, yeah, just going under different names, just wondering what that would be like. But in the end of the day, I mean, it was, you know, I said this to him, I'm really... proud of what he's he's built and the legacy he's built and the the equity he's put into the the name and stuff and you know it's also it's a unique last name your dad's philosophy sounded like it was kind of to go big yeah

And you've said your philosophy is to go much slower and smaller. Yeah. What do you mean? I mean, for me, I have no ego with my work of I need to be.

number one on the call sheet I need to have my name on the billboard and the biggest trailer big yeah all that kind of stuff I mean for me it was really just like I want to work with amazing filmmakers and i don't care if it's a one-day role i don't care if it's a five-day role i you know if it's run a picture i just want to continuously learn and grow and and um get better at my craft and and

get to work with these amazing, talented individuals. He's told me he's done one audition in his life. That's crazy. One audition. And you couldn't even believe that. Onto the neck and you know so it was a different time back then and you know the action heroes and the leading man were a lot different than it is today and Yeah, I guess my approach has just been I just

want to continuously grow. Have you been handling the sort of sudden fame, as it were? People knew you from other projects, but this is on a whole different level. How's that been for you? I think that It's definitely been a roller coaster for me. It's been different than I thought it was going to be. In what way? In what way?

i guess there's been other projects that i've been part of where people recognize you from this was unique because people are so involved in the show yeah the fans or very very invested they're very invested in your character they're very invested on where your character is going to go everybody has thoughts or theories or ideas about what's going to happen

And so when they see you, they want to come up and they want to talk to you. They think you're going to spill some information. They think you're going to validate their crazy theory. I mean, I got it from Abby, my fiance. I mean, she would tell me all of her because she didn't know. so like i mean every dinner as she was telling me all these different ideas and thoughts and i was just like and then also like we said in the beginning the first four weeks people loved to hate my character

And they made that very vocal. And they would come up and tell me. And it was a weird... I guess the biggest learning experience was people have a really hard time deciphering the difference between you as a human and your character. But I guess one of the benefits of having my parents in the business and seeing other friends that have been in the business and how their lives have changed and stuff.

It was really important for me and always has been that kind of my core foundation doesn't change. Meaning just like my friends and my family and my faith.

my fiance and the people that are always around me like that that stuff has not changed at all and so i think that's probably kept me kind of a little more to the ground um and allowed me to see that you know this too shall pass i mean you kind of go in waves as an actor yeah that um you know there's times where you might have a great moment with white lotus and then there's another

eight nine ten months that you might not work at all and people forget about you or whatever and so as long as I have those other components around me then not much changes, which I like. You are especially close, I think, with your family. Yeah. Do you still have dinner every Saturday night over at your mom's house? Every Sunday, yeah. I had dinner with them last night.

Did you? Uh-huh. And is that, I mean, so many people that are in this kind of, you know, world, you go off and see people that end up just kind of with screwed up lives. You haven't. How did you manage to?

to avoid all those pitfalls of fame and being i think it's for the reasons i just told you i have the the things that are constant around me you know i think what happens with a lot of people what i've seen with my some of my own friends is you know as their fame has gone up that you know the people around them have changed or then other things have have changed that that then affects them but for me those those parts have not changed

You know, I've been with my fiance for whatever, 10, it'll be 10 years, you know, and I've had my family by myself my whole life. And my best friends are all from preschool and lower school and high school. And so. I think that in life you start to find out what matters to you at some point and you start to understand the definition of what success is to you.

Those are the things that define what I want in life and what success is. What do you think? Obviously, each of your parents have probably given you different things. what do you think your mom has given you example i think exactly that really trying to help me understand what it is in life that i find important yeah you know and uh she's more the introspective side of you yeah

Yeah, for sure. And she's always been, you know, all about family and about faith and her friends. And those are the things that have rubbed off on me. Whereas my dad wanted to be very... He's very goal-centric and very much wanting to be the best at his, you know, craft and wants to be the, you know, he's more, yeah, I would say more career-driven. And he's, you know, and that's what makes him so unique.

He's the one that really suggested you study business. Yeah. What did he say? What did he say? Because it seemed like it was more than you just got to have a plan B in case acting doesn't work out. It was never a plan B. He said he would always tell us, I hate plan B. He would say that plan B is for people that don't believe in where they will go in life.

And if you have a plan B that it already is your subconscious and your consciousness will start telling you that you're not capable of getting to your plan A. Oh, interesting. And so he never wanted to have, or for us kids to have an idea that there's some sort of, you know.

plan b or a safety net or whatever you want to call it because uh so why business though why did he think business was because he had so many friends that were in from back in the bodybuilding days then into acting career and so on so forth that made tons of money but would end up, you know, broke or losing a lot of it or not understanding how to use investments or didn't understand the difference of, you know, revenue and profit or whatever that might be or spending expenses.

You see that a lot in Hollywood or in sports or in other areas. But then he also just said that it didn't matter what you wanted to do in life. Having a business background was important. If you wanted to be a journalist or if you wanted to be a... a teacher you want it to be a you know a trainer you know and you want to start your own training company or you want to be a you know whatever that might be and for an actor having a business background is is extremely important

and understanding the difference of being a you know personal entity versus having an s-corp and understanding your expenses and understanding you know how you're writing things off or or actually i mean at the end of the day i am a business You know in one way or not or another it's you know, I'm trying to build my business and my my equity of my name and The brand in a brand so it is a business

And just understanding that and kind of how to make a dollar into two and things like that he would teach us growing up. And he always told us, which is something we touched on in the interview, but he's made more.

you know money and stuff from business than he has from from acting all right and um from his real estate side of the business to the bodybuilding to um his ventures than than in film and even in the film side you know talking about even with with twins how he structured that deal about taking you know the minimum sag scale for an actor instead of taking his normal paycheck and taking a revenue share on the on the back end of the first dollar in on the gross

Which ended up being astronomical so you know those are I guess the reasons to have a business kind of Background my dad put me in charge of his memorabilia when I was when I was 10 And it was all for nonprofit. I didn't make any money, but it was to understand how to sell. And I would go and he said, you have the ability to use my likeness. Go and do what you want with it. and sell stuff and it'll all go to charity. It'll go to After School All-Stars.

And so I would take these different photos of him, you know, at Muscle Beach, and we would frame them. I took replica of the Conan swords and get him to sign them, and I would sell them for $10,000 a pop. And how old were you then? I think it was 10, 11, 12, 13. I did it for years. And I would go and get plates made.

barbells and dumbbells and i'd get them to sign in and just sell them and you know just ridiculous things humidors i'd take humidors from his house and get him to sign it and go and sell it and uh it was the the purpose was so that he would under that i would understand okay if i got this picture printed and then i went got it framed how much did it cost you know and then okay if that's my cost

and I double it or triple whatever, and I sell it, then what is revenue versus profit? It was just the basic ways of allowing me to understand. Your mom also really drilled into you this notion of service. Yeah. figuring out what you can do for other people. Have you yourself ever thought about going into politics? Well, I would say it was really from my grandmother, my grandfather. You know, it was kind of that instilled in that, I would say.

That kind of, even from my grandmother's father, you know, in the Kennedy side of being of a public servant, what can you do to give back and, you know, not ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country type of a... of a motto and so with my grandfather starting you know the peace corps or my grandmother starting special olympics and my dad starting the after school all-stars and my mom doing the alzheimer's and women's alzheimer's movement

i think it was instilled in us to to find ways to to give back at a at an early age pretty high bar though huh pretty high bar yeah yeah i guess you could say that but it's also Yeah, I mean, it's not like in the end of the day, it's about learning the lesson of finding ways to give back and to help others. And it's better to give than receive and things of that nature. But yeah, I guess that's where.

What I look at, you know, it doesn't have to be through public office to to To find ways to give back, you know and Yeah, that's I think that's part of my model and that's part of even When I talk about business, it's about how can we build B Corps? How can you do things that are for profit but that are also mission-driven and that give back? There's no reason there can't be both.

Looking back at this whole year and where you are now, the expectations are probably a little higher for you now, right? Having this much success. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Maybe you thrive off it. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to the rest of my career. I feel like it's just starting and I've got a great project coming up that I'm doing with Margaret Qualley.

They were about to go start filming in August. Got a lot of other things that are in the docket for later this year and early next year. So, you know, I'm excited. I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening. And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday Morning on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air.

I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. Now streaming. Everyone who comes into this clinic is a mystery. We don't know what we're looking for.

Their bodies are the scene of the crime. Their symptoms and history are clues. You saved your life. We're doctors and we're detectives. I kind of love it if I'm being honest. Solve the puzzle. Save the patient. Watson. All episodes now streaming on Paramount+.