Sam Nivola on Brothers Sex Scene, Is Lochlan Gay?

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 3, Episode 6 of “The White Lotus,” now streaming on Max.

In Season 1 of “The White Lotus,” Murray Bartlett’s spiraling hotel manager Armond is caught with his face between his much younger employee’s asscheeks. And in Season 2, Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya spots her assistant’s beau Jack (Leo Woodall) plowing his purported uncle, Quentin (Tom Hollander).

That turned out not to be incest — Quentin hired Jack to pretend to be his nephew as part of Greg’s (Jon Gries) scheme to kill Tanya and inherit her money — but creator Mike White went even further for Season 3 of his HBO vacation dramedy.

In last week’s episode, brothers Lochlan (Sam Nivola) and Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) went out partying with Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), popping pills, pounding shots and taking Greg’s yacht for a joy ride. After their island escapades, the foursome return to the boat and start playing spin the bottle, sans bottle. Chelsea and Chloe kiss. Chloe and Lochlan kiss. Then… Lochlan and Saxon? First, it’s just a playful peck, but then Lochlan goes back for more, grabbing his older brother’s head causing the girls to buckle with laughter.

If Episode 5 is the binge, Episode 6 is the hangover, with Saxon and Lochlan piecing together what happened the night before. Throughout, there are flashes of Lochlan having sex with Chloe, with Saxon lying next to them. He’s masturbating — no, that’s Lochlan’s hand, jerking his brother off. In the morning, Saxon insists that they “both blacked out,” but a hazy memory makes him sick to his stomach.

Lochlan’s realization doesn’t happen until the end of the episode, when he’s meditating with his sister Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) in the Buddhist monastery. He has a night of introspection ahead of him, and choosing between Duke and UNC is the least of his problems.

Nivola, the 21-year-old actor who plays Lochlan, spoke with Variety ahead of the Episode 6 shocker to detail what it was like to film that incest scene and unpack his character’s sexuality.

Each season of “The White Lotus” has a shocking sex act. At what point did you figure out that it would be your character doing it this time around?

When I got the part, I remember talking to Patrick Schwarzenegger, and one of his audition scenes was the scene with Chloe [Charlotte Le Bon] where she’s like, “Your brother jerked you off last night. You don’t remember?” And he’s like, “No, I totally blacked out.” So he told me that, and I was like, “Weird… I wonder what that’s all about.” Then we both had to sign in our contracts that we were comfortable with nude scenes on camera. Then we got the scripts about a week later, and I read all of them in one sitting, on the plane to Thailand.

What was your audition scene?

I had two. I had the scene in the hammock with Sarah Catherine Hook, and I also had one with Patrick — one of the million scenes about protein shakes, I can’t remember which one.

Was this your first sex scene? Were you nervous?

Yeah, I was totally nervous. I’m a very anxious person, so I’m always nervous, especially on a big job like that. Doing the sex scene was nerve-racking, and we were on a boat, and I get seasick, so that was fucking stressful. The actual scene itself went smoothly. Mike White was sort of calming about it, and I really trusted Patrick and Charlotte.

How do you build that trust with your co-stars? What kind of preparation goes into that?

Patrick I obviously knew very well, because we’d been shooting for a few weeks at that point, and I’d been hanging out every day with him and Sarah Catherine and Jason [Isaacs] and Parker [Posey]. But Charlotte had only gotten to Thailand like two days before that, and I think her second shoot day was filming that scene. We didn’t really know her at all, but I guess she knew that Mike wouldn’t pick some creep to…

To play the creep?

Yeah exactly, to play the creep! We all just trusted each other, and that dynamic worked well. In the scene, Patrick and I are brothers, with this girl who we just met like the day before. It was very weird kissing Patrick because he’s a really good friend of mine. And, you know, I’m straight, he’s straight. It’s already weird. It would have been easier if that was the first time we were meeting. Weirdly, it was easier to do things with Charlotte because there were no stakes. It’s just this person I’ve just met. But Patrick was already like a brother to me. It felt sort of fucked up.

Well that’s good for the scene, I guess. That it felt fucked up.

Yeah! It is good.

Did you use an intimacy coordinator?

Yeah, we did. All love to her — she’s a really sweet, lovely person — but I just trust Mike so much. It’s funny the way intimacy coordinators talk. They’re always using anatomically correct vocabulary that feels stale and awkward. I’d be like, “I don’t know if I can grasp the shaft,” and then Mike would be like, “Just jerk him off.” And I’d be like, “OK, that I understand.” I do think intimacy coordinators are a great innovation. Both of my parents are actors, and they’ve told me stories of having to do that kind of stuff without someone who has your best interests at heart, with directors who are maybe less supportive and kind and caring as Mike White. I’m definitely happy they exist.

Earlier in the season, there are hints at a strange dynamic between the brothers. In the first episode, Lochlan watches Saxon undress and stares a little too long at him naked. In Episode 5, when they’re playfully kissing, Lochlan goes back for more. Is Lochlan sexually attracted to his brother, or is it something else?

I think it’s something else. I think it comes from a sense of insecurity. He really looks up to both of his siblings, not from the point of view of a physical attraction. It’s more curiosity, and trying to figure out which kind of person he is going to become. He tries to connect with him in whatever way he can. I think Lochlan is a people pleaser, who will try to get people to like him by any means necessary. Looking at Saxon while he’s jerking off is not a sexual thing — it’s more that he’s studying him: “Who is this guy? How can I get him to like me? How can I become more like him?” What he learns over the first few episodes is that Saxon is the sex guy. His primary motive in life is to make money and get laid. So, the thing on the boat is Lochlan’s tragically misguided attempt at being like, “So, you’re the sex guy. Let’s do something in that realm and try to connect in some way.” It’s obviously a big swing and a miss.

Do you think Lochlan is questioning his sexuality, or even his gender? It’s interesting you say Lochlan was “studying” Saxon, almost as if his brother is a foreign entity.

I think the way Mike looks at the world is not through a gendered lens. He can correct me if I’m wrong, but he writes both men and women, both gay and straight, so accurately and honestly. The point he is always making is that people are all the same — lovable, yet rotten at their core. I think the brother-sister thing is more about their ways of life than about gender and sexuality. With Piper, it’s about being more spiritual and down to earth. With Saxon, it’s about money and women. It could be money and men, and I don’t think it’d be that big of a difference. Lochlan has such a one-track mind. He wants love and attention — it could be from a guy, it could be from a girl. I don’t think he knows what he’s attracted to yet. If he finds out he’s attracted to men after this season, then it will probably become a problem, given his family being rich, conservative Southerners. But at this time, that’s not what’s going through his head.

Throughout the episode, Saxon is putting together the pieces of the night before. How much does Lochlan remember? He seems to have some recollection in the monastery.

It’s interesting, Mike always gets you to shoot a bunch of different versions, different ways to play the subtext. The scene on the boat where I’m like, “I can’t remember last night at all” — we shot versions of it where I seemed like maybe I did remember and I’m bullshitting, maybe I’m more of a creep than initially described. And then we shot the other way. The ones Mike used, which I’m happy about, are the ones where Lochlan doesn’t remember, until that moment in the temple. I like that he made that choice, because at the end of the day, Lochlan is not a creep, necessarily. Of course, I have to say that. You have to love your character. So, fuck it, I’ll defend him! I think he’s incredibly misguided, and his circumstances have put him in a bad spot, but I don’t think he’s evil or malicious in any way. It’s important to the story that he’s not some psychopath.

In the previous episode, he tells Saxon, “One day, I’m going to take you down.” What does he mean by that?

It would seem that there’s more subtext to that, but I think that’s just taken on face value. He’s trying to talk like a bro, like, “Dude, I’m gonna fucking take you down one day.” He’s trying to talk like Saxon, and I don’t think he necessarily means that he’s going to take him down because, like, of course he won’t.

With both brothers now aware that they were intimate the night before, how might that affect the rest of the vacation?

You see in the latter half of Episode 6 that Saxon is totally ignoring Lochlan, understandably, because he feels uncomfortable about everything that happened. How could he not feel that way? He finds it painful to even look at Lochlan. I think Lochlan regrets everything that happened, and he’s also like, “Fuck, everything I do is in service of trying to get my brother to like me. And now I’ve pushed him further away from me.” Lochlan is the orchestrator of his own downfall. The last two episodes are him grappling with that.

And which college he’s going to go to.

And which college he’s going to go to! But, at this point, that’s pretty low on the list of priorities for him.

Before the episode aired, had you told your family or friends about what happens to Lochlan? Or are they going to be shocked?

I told my parents, but I haven’t told my sister. She’s bad at keeping secrets. I’m not supposed to have told anyone, because I’m under a lot of NDAs. But I told my girlfriend, because she was there while we were shooting it. That’s about it. I’m really scared about getting sued by HBO.

This interview has been edited and condensed.