“There’s an element of creativity with both"- When Patrick Schwarzenegger made a bold comparison between entrepreneurship and acting

In an interview with Dane DeHaan, following the debut of The Staircase in 2022, Patrick Schwarzenegger opened up about the turning point of his career as well as his entrepreneurial dreams. He had drawn the similarities between acting and being an entrepreneur saying:

"Well, there’s an element of creativity with both, right?"

The 31-year-old actor who is the co-founder of MOSH, with his mother, Maria Shriver, also owns various other brands. He was associated with Blaze Pizza and also invested in Liquid I.V., Super Coffee, and Nuggs. Schwarzenegger is also a renowned actor who is best known for his starring roles in The Staircase (2022), American Sports Story (2024), and season 3 of The White Lotus (2025).

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What does Patrick Schwarzenegger have to say about entrepreneurship and acting?

In an interview with Dane DeHaan for Interview Magazine, Schwarzenegger made a bold comparison between acting and entrepreneurship. He said:

"Well, there’s an element of creativity with both, right? But the most frustrating part of acting is that so much of your career is heavily dependent on other people, on someone believing in you and giving you the green light. If I think about how many auditions I went on last year, call it 50, and I got one of them, for The Staircase—those odds aren’t that great. You’re always waiting on someone else to think that you did the best audition or you have the physical look or you fit exactly what they need. Whereas in business, it’s really up to you, and the amount of work and time that you want to put in to get the results. So I enjoy that part more."

Patrick Schwarzenegger always had a keen eye for business.

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Business or acting? A balance of both is what Patrick Schwarzenegger aims for

Schwarzenegger had shared how he was business-minded ever since he was a little kid and would be selling baseball cards or lemonade. He has also shared the role his father played in the shaping of his business perspectives. Talking about whether he would choose business or acting, he said:

"I’ve always had a love for business ever since I was little. My parents have photos of me running my lemonade stands, selling baseball cards out on the street, doing all of these different things to make money. And my dad was obsessed with teaching us about money and numbers. He was like, “Okay, this is how much each lemonade packet costs and you’re getting this much lemonade now, so how much do you need to sell it for to make your money back and then profit?” And in the mornings he would make us do these math equations to get our brains activated before we would go to school."

Schwarzenegger continued:

"Then I started to really get interested in film when I went to my dad’s sets and became mesmerized by the industry. But his advice to me was always, “Have another thing that you are really passionate about.” He said that the collegiate system and society really want to box you into becoming one thing. And the problem with the film industry is that even when you’re the biggest actor in the world, like he was at one point and was working eight months of the year, what are you doing the other four months?"

Talking about the downtime actors have to face, Patrick Schwarzenegger said about his father:

"He found that a lot of his friends who were attempting to become actors were driven crazy by the amount of downtime. So he said, “If you’re going to go down this path, find something else that you really love and can work on.” Business was that thing. It’s what I focus on day-to-day when I’m not on set, which can be often. It keeps me sane."

Renowned American actor, Patrick Schwarzenegger, the son of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, began his acting career playing minor roles in television series.

Apart from acting, Schwarzenegger also manages his business ventures. He franchised his own Blaze Pizza locations, which he later sold to start investing in young entrepreneurs who were creating companies to meet the demand for healthier food and beverage alternatives.

Patrick Schwarzenegger invested in the electrolyte drink mix company Liquid I.V., a protein coffee brand Super Coffee, and the vegan chicken company Nuggs. In 2020, he and his mother created the brain nutrition and wellness brand MOSH.

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Read more about Patrick Schwarzenegger here.