Meet the Men on 'White Lotus' Season 3

Openly gay creator Mike White is back as writer and director for the third installment of the smash hit series which debuts on Sunday, February 16, 2025, on HBO and will be available to stream on Max.

The latest slow-burn-to-a-sizzle social satire is set at an exclusive Thai resort and follows the same "Fantasy Island"-type premise as previous sesons, where a slew of guests arrives with their legion of idiosyncrasies while the hotel employees have their own agendas going on. Besides unconventional sexual habits, this anthology installment explores such topics as God and spirituality; free will vs. fate; the definition of family; and, given the show's track record, privileged entitlement vs. working class values. And there are beaucoup monkeys.

There is no Jennifer Coolidge to camp things up, but we do have Parker Posey as an affluent matriarch, with a Southern drawl you have to hear to believe, and Jason Issacs is her troubled husband. They've come to Thailand at the behest of their Buddhist-interested daughter (Sarah Catherine Hook) and brought along their two sons (Patrick Schwarzenegger and Sam Nivola). A trio of BFFs played by Michelle Monaghan, Carrie Coon and Leslie Bibb are also staying at this White Lotus, while an irascible Walton Goggins and his glass-half-full girlfriend, Aimee Lou Wood, round out the guests.

The show's first two seasons saw 43 Emmy nominations and 15 wins, including consecutive ones as Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, and two for Coolidge in the supporting category. Who can forget how she thanked the "evil gays" who were out to murder her on a yacht off the Sicilian coast in her acceptance speech? (Though not murdered, her character did die in one of the show's more brilliant dark turns, so don't expect her in Thailand.)

In addition, homoerotic moments, explicit male nudity, and sexual situations pervaded the first two seasons, so the promise of a queer-tinged, salacious season three has us tingling and, without giving anything away, the queer aspects in this chapter will make certain heads spin.

But who are the hotties of Season 3?

Patrick Schwarzenegger

The son of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patrick has those hot Kennedy looks and acting chops to back it up. (Sorry, Arnold!)

The young Schwarzenegger plays Saxon Ratliffe, a sexy/sleazy rich boy who thinks he's all that. Saxon is only along for the ride, and his goal is to sleep with as many women as possible. But he experiences something that truly rattles him. When Sam Nivola, who plays his brother, commented at a recent press conference that they share a room, Patrick quickly said: "We share more than a room!"

No stranger to nudity, Schwarzenegger bares quite a bit on the series. He's already been naked in the indie "Daniel Isn't Real," as well as on "The Boys" spinoff series "Gen V." Other film credits include "Stuck in Love" (2012), "Dear Eleanor" (2016), and "Midnight Sun" (2018). He had a prominent role experimenting with his same-sex attraction in the HBO true crime miniseries "The Staircase," with Colin Firth and Toni Collette. His next feature is "Billy Knight," opposite Al Pacino.

"White Lotus" should bring him a slew of brand-new gay fans.