Patrick Schwarzenegger Reveals That His Father Loves His True Crime Series 'The Staircase'

Everyone knows and loves Arnold Schwarzenegger; he is one of the most iconic actors in TV history and is so popular that his surname is quite literally a household name. Arnold's son, Patrick Schwarzenegger, is rising fast and also steadily making his name as an actor.

The younger Schwarzenegger features in the recently released true crime HBO drama series, "The Staircase." The series has gotten a lot of attention and applause for its quality and top-notch acting. One fan of the series is Schwarzenegger's father, Arnold. 

Arnold is apparently "obsessed" with the drama and loves his sons' performance. He is also a big fan of the original true-crime documentary that partly inspired the HBO series.

Read on to find out what else Patrick revealed.

In the now popular HBO drama, "The Staircase," Patrick plays the character of Todd Peterson, the youngest son of Michael Peterson (played by Colin Firth), from his first marriage. 

Todd and his father, Michael, have a pretty strained father-son relationship, but this is far from Schwarzenegger's reality with his own father. The 28-year-old revealed that Arnold was extremely supportive of the new role- even when he didn't ask him for guidance or advice.

The "Daniel Isn't Real" actor revealed this during an interview with Insider and said, "A lot of sons go to their father for advice with anything. I definitely go to him like that, but I didn't go to him for this specific character."

According to Patrick, his 74-year-old father is not only a huge fan of the new Antonio Campos dramatic adaptation for HBO Max but is also obsessed with the original true-crime documentary of the Peterson family that partly inspired Campos.

Patrick said, "He had watched the miniseries, and he was obsessed with it as well once he found out that I got cast in this." He also revealed that he had watched the documentary twice and read about the famous case.

Patrick explained that his knowledge of the case and the Peterson family made him super excited about the opportunity to play the role of Todd Peterson and be a part of an adaptation of such a historical crime and moment.

Patrick also heaped a lot of praise on Campos for being so helpful to the cast during their preparation for filming the series. He said, "Antonio Campos was with the story for like, ten years. He was such a treasure chest of information."

The "Midnight Sun" actor continued, "He (Campos) had so much uncut footage from the documentary to pull from, and interviews to read, and he was almost a one-stop-shop of information." He isn't the only cast member to praise Campos' hard work and dedication.

The HBO drama also stars amazing actors and actresses like Sophie Turner, Colin Firth, Toni Collette, and Michael Stuhlbarg. The series is yet to finish releasing episodes on HBO Max, so fans have to wait until every Thursday for a new episode.

The original true-crime documentary partly inspired the HBO drama series. It follows the experiences of Peterson and his family as they try to understand the death of Kathleen, his wife, and grapple with the possibility that Peterson is guilty of murdering her.  

In the real-life crime, police realized that Peterson might be a person of interest after investigating Kathleen's death and, not long after, indicted him on murder charges. Peterson then turned himself in peacefully. After a lengthy trial, the court convicted Peterson of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison in 2003. 

Years later, it was revealed that a key witness from the prosecution had lied under oath leading to questions about the validity of the trial and sentence. Due to the controversy, a judge vacated the verdict and sentence of the original jury in 2011. In 2017, Peterson then submitted an Alford plea and was released for the time he had served.