Patrick Schwarzenegger Recalls Hiding White Lotus Audition from His Family Before Landing Role: 'The Greatest Day' (Exclusive)

Patrick Schwarzenegger had to keep a poker face around his family before landing one of the biggest roles of his career.

Speaking to PEOPLE for February's digital cover, Schwarzenegger, 31, recalls how he landed the audition for The White Lotus season 3 — and why he chose to keep it a secret from his loved ones.

The actor says years before the opportunity arose, he and his family were huge fans of the series and would often watch it together every Sunday nights. It was his mother, journalist and Kennedy scion Maria Shriver, who ultimately gave him the big push to audition.

“Every time we would watch the show, season 1 and season 2, every time Theo James would come up or in the first season, Jake Lacey… my mom was always like, ‘Why haven't you auditioned for this? Why didn't you go out for this?’ And my sister's like, ‘You need to call your agents right now. This is ridiculous that you're not in on the show, that you didn't even audition,'" he recalls.

Still, when the email to audition for season 3 popped into his inbox, an "ecstatic" Schwarzenegger stayed mum. "I didn't even tell my mom. I didn't tell anybody because I was like, 'Whatever, everyone's going to go out for this show. I have such a sliver of a chance to get a call back,'" he says.

After learning he was auditioning for a character named Saxon, Schwarzenegger kicked it into high gear. “It was an unusual one for me because I was flying back from Milan … usually I like to wait a few days and really practice the audition and digest it and then go and do it,” he recalls.

"This one, I was like, 'I'm going to learn it right now on the plane and I'm going to film this the second I get back, I want to be the first,'" he says. "I never send an audition the first day, and I literally landed, I told my fiancée [Abby Champion], we went, we filmed it and … in that same day, it was within a couple of hours, they were like, 'This is exactly what we're looking for.'"

Schwarzenegger then had to wait months — a period he says was agonizingly long — before getting word that he got a callback for a chemistry read and screen test the day after Christmas.

“I could not enjoy the holidays. I had so much anxiety, I was freaking out over it,” he says, noting that his family probably suspected he was acting strange. “I was in Idaho with my dad [Arnold Schwarzenegger] and we go skiing every morning, and the audition was at 9 a.m. … and I was like, ‘Hey, I'm not going to go skiing today.’ And he was like, ‘Why?’ I was like, ‘I've got to do this audition thing, so just whatever, you guys go and just… No one call me.’ I texted all my family, do not call me today, don't text me, don't do anything.’”

Once he got into the room with creator Mike White, Patrick remembers the "unique" experience of not knowing the storyline, but giving it his all.

"They don't want to give anybody information. So you kind of just have to go off of the audition papers [and think], what are they looking for? What do you want to bring to this character? Honestly, it was just me taking a wild stab at what he was looking for," he says. "Then I did the chemistry read, and then I got the message from Mike that I got it, and I started crying and it was the greatest day in history for me."

At that point, Patrick was finally able to share the news, though he kept it contained to a small group of loved ones.

“Obviously I'm going to tell my fiancée because we got engaged the week before and I was like, ‘Sorry, I'm leaving for seven months [to film].’ So that was perfect timing,” he says with a laugh. “Then I went and had lunch with my whole family the week later, and I told them and my mom started bursting out, crying. Then my sister started crying, and then I started crying, and then Abby started. It was like a domino effect of mayhem and tears.”

With season 3 just 10 days away, Patrick says he's excited for fans to watch the newest iteration, though he feels some pressure to uphold its legacy.

"You feel some pressure [because] the first two seasons were so great,” he says, noting that he puts his trust in White. "One of the biggest blessings is that he's the writer, he's the showrunner, he's the director, he's the creator — so he's very specific [about] what he wants. When you weren’t doing what he wanted, he'd walk over and jokingly say, ‘What the f--- was that? Redo it,’ from behind the camera."

“You just have to trust that he knows what he's doing because he does. I mean, it's worked!" he adds.

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The White Lotus season 3 premieres Sunday, Feb. 16 at 9 p.m. ET on Max.