Patrick & Arnold Schwarzenegger On White Lotus Nude Scenes, Why Kids 'Hated' Dad As Governor

During a sit-down conversation for Variety's Actors on Actors series, the father-son duo shared their thoughts on Patrick's filming nude scenes in Season 3 of HBO's The White Lotus, in which he starred as Saxon Ratfliff, eldest child of the wealthy, privileged family.

Arnold, 77, brought up the first time he went all natural on film in 1984's The Terminator.

"Terminator was the first time that I was doing a film that had nothing to do with the muscles. It was with leather jackets on and being a machine," he said. "Only the opening scene was naked. But I'm talking about naked."

"I've done it," Patrick, 31, replied.

"I couldn’t believe [it]," Arnold said of his son, before recalling his reaction to seeing Patrick's full-frontal moment on The White Lotus.

"I said to myself, 'I'm watching your show, and I'm watching your butt sticking out there.' And all of a sudden, I see the weenie," he said jokingly as Patrick laughed. "What is going on here? This is crazy!"

"Then I said to myself, 'Well, Arnold, hello. You did the same thing in Conan and Terminator, so don't complain about it,'" Arnold continued. "But it was a shock to me that you were following my footsteps so closely."

Patrick has been praised for his performance in The White Lotus, with his dad even admitting that his "acting surprised the hell out of [him]."

"I didn't recognize you. I was blown away," he added.

Patrick reflected on the show's success, saying, "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."

Arnold noted that he's had fans approach him about Patrick in public -- although not everyone is a fan of Saxon.

"Now everyone is coming up to me in the gym and saying, 'Your son is fantastic.' Someone else comes up to me and says, 'I hated your son in the series,'" he said, to which Patrick admitted, "That was the weird part."

"'Hated him? What kind of a compliment is that? They said, 'He was fantastic, but the character he played was so believable,'" Arnold added.

Ultimately, Patrick described the fan reaction as a "roller coaster" as viewers watched his character's journey and transformation on screen.

"The biggest learning experience is how much people associate you with your character. I don't know how much that happened to you over the course of your career -- maybe with The Terminator," he told his dad. "The first weeks, people came up to me and told me how much they hated me. By the end of it, they came up to me saying how much they felt bad for me. It was a roller coaster."

Patrick is one of Arnold's four children whom he welcomed during his marriage to Maria Shriver. The former couple -- who were married for 25 years until they separated in 2011 -- also share Katherine, 35, Christina, 33, and Christopher, 27.

In 2003, Arnold, of course, ran and ultimately became Governor of California, a position he held until 2011. However, according to Arnold and Patrick, the latter and his siblings were not fans of their dad becoming governor.

"In 2003, as you remember, I ran for governor and became governor, which you guys…," Arnola said, before Patrick chimed in, completing his dad's sentence.

" ... hated," he said with a laugh.

"Hated," Arnold confirmed, recalling, "It was the funniest thing. You coming to me and saying, 'Dad, we had so much fun going to the set and watching you blow things up. And now ..."

"...we go to the Capitol," Patrick added.

"All of you were rebelling," Arnold said of Patrick and his kids.

Meanwhile, Patrick recalled getting pulled out of school early to go visit his dad on movie sets as a kid, calling the experience "heaven."

"Aimee Lou [Wood] asked me, 'Where did you first get interested in acting?'" he said, referring to his White Lotus co-star and friend. "And I was like, 'It was heaven for a kid, going to a movie set with your dad.' You would pick me up and take me out of school early in your Hummer."

"You'd come pick me up early and you['d walk in as Dad, go into the trailer, come out as Mr. Freeze or the Terminator," Patrick continued. "We would be in the trailer, and during your breaks, we could walk into craft services, get some Red Vines, and we would take the golf cart and go to the E.T. ride. We talked about this idea of nepotism, but when you grow up and your parents do a specific job, it makes sense that you go and work in that world."

See more from the full conversation, above!