Aimee Lou Wood and Patrick Schwarzenegger hardly knew what they were in for when they moved to Thailand for seven months to film “The White Lotus” Season 3.
Longtime actors who had not yet had their big Hollywood break, they sat for the new season of TheWrap’s Visionaries video series and reflected on their nervous early days on the Mike White-led set and how the entire cast worked and grew together along the way.
Their origins could not be more different. Schwarzenegger grew up on the wealthy west side of Los Angeles, son to the world’s most famous Arnold, while Wood grew up in a village in greater Manchester, England. But the two found a love of performing — and specifically theater — early on, a realization that bonded them in the first days of filming.
“This is the thing that I love about you so much because I remember in the first week of filming, you told me that you still go to [theater] classes, and I just thought that was so — that’s how I knew you were a Virgo,” Wood, who trained at London’s famed Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, told the 31-year-old actor. “But I thought that was so wonderful because you are that person, you are just a lifelong learner.”
Wood and Schwarzenegger’s “White Lotus” characters, the free-spirited Chelsea and finance bro Saxon, are not so quickly charmed by one another. Saxon is a smarmy “douche,” to use Wood’s descriptor, who from the start is more interested in racking up sex partners on his family vacation than making a real connection. But he finds himself drawn to Chelsea especially because she is unfazed by the macho antics that would usually get him a hook-up.
“As soon as you have someone to act with, you start really working out the dynamics. Because there’s Saxon and Chelsea on the page, but that’s not the Saxon and Chelsea — like, there were so many times where Mike would be like, ‘OK, you have to be a bit angrier with him at this point because it’s not Patrick,’” Wood recalled of finding their tense-but-curious chemistry. “But I think that’s just part of what made it good … If you had an actual douche playing Saxon, it wouldn’t work. The reason why you’re patient with him is that you do see your goodness shining through. You see his potential. As abhorrent as some of the things he says are at the beginning, there’s something lovable and you just stick with him.”
Schwarzenegger admitted that he never believed White when assured that audiences would eventually come around on Saxon — “I don’t think so, man!” — but agreed that the creator and director’s slight notes (like “be a bit angrier”) were integral to the final performances captured onscreen. He described the acting process with the series’ ensemble cast as a “boiling pot” of performers learning their way.
“It’s like everyone just kind of shows up and you just bring what you want to bring and then Mike comes in and fine tunes it and is very specific with what he’s looking for,” Schwarzenegger said. “Kind of everyone’s in this boat, unsure, and then you just kind of make it work. It was such a fascinating process.”
He also appreciated being one of the performers who was earlier on in his career mixing in with film and TV veterans like Walton Goggins, Michelle Monaghan, Parker Posey and Jason Isaacs, the latter of whom played his onscreen parents, Victoria and Timothy Ratliff.
“[White] does a good job of, like, mixing in these Hollywood heavyweights with Walton and Carrie [Coon] and Leslie [Bibb] and Michelle, with people that have not ‘had their break’ yet — I don’t know what the right wording is,” the actor said. “But he gives an opportunity to newer people to shine, which I felt very fortunate about. It’s this cool mix of different types of actors coming together.”
“There’s no hierarchy there,” Wood acknowledged. “And that’s what was so good because that also allowed me to be opposite Walton going, ‘That’s Rick.’ I didn’t have that whole, like, ‘It’s Walton Goggins, hello sir.’”
In all, the co-stars agreed that “The White Lotus” gave them something everlasting and special.
“The whole process is unlike anything else that I’ve ever done,” Schwarzenegger said.
“It’s changed me in a really internal, profound way,” said Wood.
Watch more of Schwarzenegger and Wood’s intimate and vibrant conversation about their creative journeys and what it was like working together in “The White Lotus” in the video above.
Visionaries is produced by Jennifer Laski, Head of Video and Photography for TheWrap.
