The White Lotus committed to the incest bit, but what happens between Sam Nivola and Patrick Schwarzenegger‘s characters from here?
During the Sunday, March 16, episode of the hit HBO series, Lochlan (Nivola) and Saxon (Schwarzenegger) party with Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) — but that quickly takes a turn when they finally act on that concerning tension between them by sharing a kiss.
“Without spoiling too much, everything changes for my character. It was basically like there’s two versions of me. There’s before that and after that, and that was a really important thing,” Nivola, 21, told GQ on Sunday. “Of course, the way it’s edited and the way it looks, it is really sort of raunchy and there’s moments leading up to that are really sexually charged. But I think really that’s supposed to be a red herring for the audience where really it’s just [that] Lochlan just wants attention and he just wants his brother to like him.”
Nivola acknowledged that Lochlan “gets really f—ed up and does something terrible” as a result.
“We didn’t really talk about it at all until we shot the scene. My character’s big turning point is that moment at the end of episode 5,” he continued. “We shot it a few different ways, and we talked about it a lot. I think at the end of the day, it was supposed to just be like they’re all really f—ed up, and, of course, kissing your brother is incredibly wrong and weird and gross. But I think as is the case with The White Lotus, it’s like these crazy actions and sort of heightened reality coming from really real emotions that are actually really relatable to your everyday guy.”
Sam Nivola and Patrick Schwarzenegger in “The White Lotus.” MAX
Before the show acted on the weird vibes between the brothers, Lochlan and Saxon’s relationship was already called into question. Saxon notably asked Lochlan about his porn preferences just before he walked around naked in front of his younger brother. Lochlan, for his part, appeared intrigued by Saxon’s advice while seemingly questioning his sexual identity.
“He just is desperate for his brother’s approval, and he’s out doing this partying drug thing with Saxon, which is a thing that Saxon keeps talking about, and all he talks about is sex. He’s like, ‘Sex is the main point of life. You need to get laid. That’s what you need,’” Nivola explained. “I’m like, ‘OK. Well, in this charged sexual environment, what can I do to make you notice me and get you to approve of me?’ And then, he does the wrong thing to make that happen.”
Nivola called the moment “really complicated” for his character going forward.
“What we wound up deciding is we’re going to let our instincts and Yana Grebenyuk Mike [White]‘s direction take the reins and let the audience interpret this weird thing that we have going on, because that’s the way of movies and TV,” he detailed. “And also, the way Mike directs is very loose, which I love. He never comes into a day of work like, ‘This is exactly what I want, and if I don’t get that, I’m going to be mad.’”
Nivola continued: “He’s always coming up with ideas. So you as the actor have to really be yourself, not married to anything. You have to be ready to adapt and change your performance depending on what he winds up choosing on the day. So we also didn’t want to make any hard and fast decisions about what we wanted the dynamic to be until we were on set.”
While Nivola couldn’t give away where the story goes next, he was grateful for the chance to bring Lochlan to life, saying, “He’s actually pretty similar to a lot of characters I’ve played. He’s obviously awkward and virginal and young. It’s definitely in my wheelhouse. … Basically Lochlan is a really, really insecure guy who is stuck between his siblings and just wants to be loved and will do anything to achieve that. I really relate to that. I mean, maybe not as desperately as him, but I think it’s a very, very universal experience.”
New episodes of The White Lotus air on HBO Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
