Jason Isaacs 'wants the world to think' he didn't wear prosthetic penis on The White Lotus, Mike White says

There's been a lot of talk about Jason Isaacs' full-frontal moment on The White Lotus. And a lot of that talk has come from Isaacs himself wondering why everyone is so fascinated with male nudity on TV. But so far, the actor has not confirmed or denied that he wore a prosthetic penis for the revealing scene — and The White Lotus creator Mike White believes he knows the reason why.

"I think Jason wants the world to think that that’s him, and so he doesn’t want to admit that it’s a prosthetic," White told The Hollywood Reporter. "That is my two cents."

Isaacs bared all in episode 4, "Hide or Seek," as his buttoned-up family man Timothy Ratliff continued to spiral in a Lorazepam-induced haze over the impending legal troubles awaiting him and his blissfully unaware family when they return home from vacation. The moment inducted Isaacs into the franchise's ever-growing club of male full-frontal scenes played for laughs, joining his onscreen son Patrick Schwarzenegger, season 2's Theo James, and season 1's Steve Zahn.

Isaacs has not been shy in calling out what he believes is "prurient talk about a nude shot," and has refused to confirm whether he wore a prosthetic (although his onscreen children Sarah Catherine Hook and Sam Nivola both claim he did). Hook told the outlet that Isaacs is "really upset" about the discourse over whether he wore a prosthetic for the scene, but White claimed that Isaacs "was totally easy and wanted to do it."

Regardless of what people are saying about the moment, Isaacs understands why there is so much discussion about the scene, the character, and the story this season. "The series is much more profound and rich and resonant and human than others, but Mike’s genius is also that he knows how to titillate and provoke and create conversations," Isaacs explained. "He uses the medium of hourlong television at a weekly interval utterly perfectly. It’s why the internet is full of talk of Timothy Ratliff going full-frontal."

"Yeah, showing dong is my genius," White quipped. "When I was doing [network] TV when I was like 30, we’d go and test these pilots, and you’d have people sitting there with their little dials to show if they’re interested or not. It’s insane how base everyone is. You show a woman with big tits and suddenly the dial goes up. It’s the oldest trick in the book."

When discussing his full-frontal scene previously with Entertainment Weekly, Isaacs was in good spirits as he joked that "it is now in my contract for every show I do, so we'll see."

"It'll get easier, hopefully," the actor said with a laugh. "He's drugging himself into a stupor to try not to think about the fact that his entire life is blowing up and trying to work out what to do about it. It was actually quite challenging — I remember reading the scripts thinking, 'Wow, I've got to keep my powder dry for five or six episodes, and then this s--- really kicks off.' You haven't seen other things that are coming, but I just remember thinking, 'I better dig deep and produce something here,' because there's a lot of parts you can go through and tell a very dramatic story without your character going through anything extreme. But there's some big, old acting coming up."

Isaacs poured himself into the character during filming to bring that to life, but he isn't sure what audiences will think once they see the rest of the season. "I don't know how I pulled it off," he said. "The audience will see whether I did or not. It'll be up to them to judge, but I just remember thinking, 'I've got to go big — go big or go home.' And then when things happen that I can't talk about particularly, something else had to kick in, and there's a mania and a terror that you have to access. You've got to get there. I mean, you've got to be as real as you can. And yeah, there was some inner gear changes required."

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The actor became embroiled in a bit of controversy surrounding his nude moment after having an awkward conversation with the hosts of CBS Mornings. In an attempt to dodge the question about his full-frontal scene involving prosthetics, Isaacs monologued against the "double standard" that male actors face when it comes to onscreen nudity. He specifically pointed to Anora's Mikey Madison and The Substance's Margaret Qualley, arguing that they aren't asked to discuss their own prosthetic genitalia.

Isaacs then backtracked his comments in the wake of backlash. "I said the wrong words in the wrong way," Isaacs clarified to Variety. "I used the phrase 'double standard,' which I didn’t mean at all. There is a [different] double standard — women have been monstrously exploited and men haven’t... It came out wrong, and I was tired — I’d done so many interviews. I absolutely should not have mentioned those two actresses, whom I respect enormously. Mikey Madison I’m a massive fan of. My point wasn’t that men have had a harder time than women — that would be absurd. Women have had a monstrous time on camera forever, and I hope to God that is changing."

The White Lotus season 3 finale airs Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.