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Arnold Schwarzenegger admits that Patrick Schwarzenegger's "acting surprised the hell out of me"

By Sophia Soto | Last updated Jun 4, 2025 9:10 AM ET

For this year's Actors on Actors, Variety paired the father and son duo of Arnold and Patrick Schwarzenegger to talk about their recent projects and overall careers. Patrick just starred as Saxon Ratliff in Mike White’s The White Lotus season 3, while Arnold has season 2 of FUBAR coming out this month on Netflix.

"A year ago, Variety would’ve never asked us to sit here and have this discussion. But now you came out with The White Lotus, [and] you went through the roof. Your acting surprised the hell out of me. I didn’t recognize you. I was blown away," the actor told his son, even later adding how "everyone is coming up to me in the gym and saying, 'Your son is fantastic.'"

After thanking him, Patrick expressed, "This is a surreal moment for me, because as much as we get to talk, we would never have a 45-minute conversation about acting. One of the best parts about being on the show is the amount of people that get to recognize [my] work; I’ve done so many shows that not so many people have seen."

Additionally, Arnold shared that he read an Austrian magazine that had a big cover story on Patrick and his work: "One of the quotes was how difficult it is to get through this because you have the name Schwarzenegger. Explain that to me, because to me, the name Schwarzenegger always meant a big plus. And then all of a sudden you were talking about [how] it can be an obstacle."

"I feel it in multiple different ways. Mike White said that it comes with baggage, the idea that when you have successful parents like I do with you and Mom, there’s an added level of what other people think. Mike was worried about, if he cast me, what other people would think. Which they did — they did care about that; people said I got the role because of you and Mom," Patrick explained to him. "There were times earlier in my career where I was wondering, does it make sense to go under an alias? It took a while for me to get to a point where I was less worried about living in your shadow versus wanting to do it the way I thought I should do it."

All episodes of The White Lotus are streaming on Max. FUBAR returns on June 12.

Sophia Soto

Sophia Soto is a writer and interviewer with a passion for all things entertainment. She is a Senior Reporter at The Nerds of Color and contributes to Yardbarker, Screensphere, Den of Geek, What to Watch, Nerdtropolis, and Temple of Geek. You can see her past work on Remezcla, Young Hollywood, Looper, Paste Magazine, Primetimer, Soundsphere, and Starry Constellation Magazine

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