Murray Bartlett and Lukas Gage ‘Tossing Salad’ In HBO’s The White Lotus
HBO is known for producing some of the sauciest television programs and they have once again delivered a scene which fans have gone wild for.
Australian actor Murray Bartlett stars in HBO’s latest series The White Lotus which aired on July 11, 2021. The fourth episode of the series finished with a bang, of sorts, with Bartlett’s character Armond giving a rim-job to his employee Dillon, played by Lukas Gage.
The scene was originally written to have Bartlett and Gage’s characters having penetrative sex, however the choice to switch things up came from the two actors who insisted it could be more shocking, reports Queerty.
“It felt right in terms of the shock value. And it felt great in terms of: ‘Let’s show something that is a natural part of sex for a lot of queer people,” says Bartlett.
In an interview with AV Club, actor Lukas Gage explains that the scene was designed so that a guest could walk in on the debauchery and end the episode on a sexual cliffhanger.
“We said, ‘Wouldn’t it be more interesting if [Dillon’s] getting his salad tossed?,’” says Gage. The two actors worked with an intimacy coordinator to block the scene then reportedly dived right in, quite literally in Bartlett’s case.
According to Queerty, Bartlett is not unfamiliar with having sex scenes with male partners. The out and proud actor he has starred in Looking on HBO and the Netflix revival of Tales of the City where he plays gay characters.
The first gay rim-job on mainstream television was in the UK version of Queer As Folk, episode one, broadcast on Channel 4 in 2000.
The now infamous scene has garnered a slew of online admiration and attention, to say the least. Twitter users have expressed their appreciation with various enthusiastic responses.
