“The White Lotus” star Steve Zahn discovered one of the more unusual perks of being a Hollywood actor on the hit HBO series: getting to approve the prosthetic penis for his character’s full-frontal scene.
Playing a middle-aged father of two who has a false-alarm brush with testicular cancer in creator Mike White’s dramedy set at a high-end Hawaiian resort, Zahn has a key scene where he flashes his enlarged privates to his super-successful tech CFO wife (played by Connie Britton).
“I remember when I got the script asking Mike if I was going to have to do full frontal. And he’s like, ‘No, it’s going to be a prosthetic,’” Zahn told TheWrap. “I did have to approve the prosthetic that they used. He showed it to me first. And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’ll do.’”
He didn’t lobby for a more generous member? “No, I was like, ‘OK, great.’”
Better yet, Zahn said he didn’t have to actually wear the prosthetic penis himself during the shoot. “No, that was my body double,” he said. “I asked if I was going to have to wear it and (White) goes, ‘Well, it’s two hours in the makeup chair and we don’t see your face so we don’t need you to.’”
Zahn, who first broke out in the 1990s in hits like “Reality Bites,” “That Thing You Do!” and “Out of Sight,” said he was surprised that he didn’t have to actually drop trou himself for the role on the series, which has generated so much water-cooler chatter that HBO this month greenlit a second season (albeit with an all-new cast).
“I come from the old school where we were actually naked when we were naked,” Zahn said. “I mean, my ass is in so many movies and shows it’s not even funny.”
