Patrick Schwarzenegger’s Climb to Stardom Leads to His First Lead Film Role in ‘The Journeyman’

He’s had a long, slow climb to film stardom, but these days, it’s never been better to be “White Lotus” actor Patrick Schwarzenegger. “This is my first time home in six months,” says the 33-year-old, who married his longtime girlfriend, model Abby Champion, last year. “It’s really nice to have a bit of time here [in California] before I leave in three weeks for another six months!”

Schwarzenegger is flying to Puerto Rico to play the title role in Ángel Manuel Soto’s crime thriller “The Journeyman” from AGC Studios, which is producing and fully financing the project. It’s the first film he’s ever done that revolves around his character, a struggling tennis player Schwarzenegger says is “at his wits’ end with his career” when he’s approached about fixing his matches. Leslie Grace plays his devoted fiancée.

He’s been training for two months with a pro tennis player. “I’m used to how I grew up with my dad: a lot of weight training,” he says. “And now it’s training to get less muscular looking, and a more lengthy kind of tennis build.”

While it seems counterintuitive to take muscles away from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son, the role still hits close to home: his mom Maria Shriver’s fourth cousin is tennis champ Pam Shriver, and he was also at his wits’ end with his career. After a decade of disappointing movies, he began looking for more prestigious TV and film projects, and found them in 2022’s “The Staircase” and 2024’s “American Sports Story.” “‘The Staircase’ allowed me to be seen a bit more seriously,” Schwarzenegger says.

That got him his breakthrough role on 2025’s “White Lotus,” leading to a number of upcoming features with A-list ensembles. He’s just returned from filming Mike Birbiglia’s comedy “Old Friends New Friends” with Lucas Hedges in upstate New York for Focus. This followed two Toronto shoots: Yulin Kuang’s 20th Century Studios adaptation of “Beach Read” with Andie MacDowell (the mother of Margaret Qualley, his co-star in Rachel Morrison’s “Love of Your Life” from Amazon MGM); and S. Craig Zahler’s crime drama “The Bookie & the Bruiser” with Theo James. And his turn in Florian Zeller’s psychological thriller “Bunker” with Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem will be seen in a December award-qualifying run. Alec Griffen Roth’s 2025 drama “Billy Knight” with Al Pacino still awaits release after a festival run.

The “Journeyman” team was “looking for an actor who would believably be an athlete, [and who] you naturally root for,” says AGC’s head of film Zach Garrett. “You need that in a movie where somebody’s making a deal with the devil.” Stuart Ford, Bryan Haas, Mason Eways and Scott Franklin are producing the script, penned by married duo Bryan and Alexis Roberts with contributions from Bill Dubuque. AGC’s Miguel A. Palos Jr., Garrett and Anant Tamirisa are exec producing; AGC Intl. is repping international rights at AFM, and co-repping domestic sales with UTA and WME.

Up next: Schwarzenegger is returning to TV for an entry in Hulu’s “Good American Family” anthology as John Wayne Bobbitt, whose then-wife Lorena notoriously cut off his penis in 1993. And soon we may see him write, produce and act in his own series. “I’ve been writing a show with an incredible director that we’re in the midst of selling right now, a comedic drama in the tone of ‘The Bear,’” he says. “I don’t think I’m that funny, [but “Lotus” creator] Mike White would always tell me, ‘Your comedy comes from you being so serious in such outlandish scenarios’ … So fingers crossed that that happens! You just never know.”