16 Behind-The-Scenes Stories About Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies

Stars never know what's going to be their most successful project. Sometimes it's that important period drama, and other times it's the movie about the robot assassin who's trying to kill Linda Hamilton. Before production on The Terminator began, the Austrian wonder wasn't pumped on the production. It was a down-and-dirty sci-fi/action flick that's basically Halloween with a robot; how was he supposed to know the movie would change the genre forever and turn him into a global star?

Schwarzenegger's friend from his bodybuilding days, Rick Wayne, said that when he spoke with the star about The Terminator on the set of Conan the Barbarian, he was less than enthused about the project:

As we sat there talking he picked up the Conan sword, which weighed a ton, and went through the moves he'd practiced. Then he grabbed a pair of shoes and I said: "What are those for?" He said: "Oh, some sh*t movie I'm doing, take a couple of weeks." It was The Terminator. That was the movie that made Arnold. For him it was just some crap film.

Even with a multimillion-dollar budget, there's nothing easy about filming in the jungle. The days are humid, there's nothing to do but work and sit around waiting to work, and there are no personal chefs. The Austrian marvel found out about the harsh realities of filming in the wilds of Central America on the set of Predator, where he came down with food poisoning.

While answering questions in a Q&A with Reddit, Schwarzenegger didn't go into details about the illness. He simply explained, "While I was on a run, the runs hit." The show must go on, and because he's in almost every scene of the movie, there's at least one moment in the final product where Schwarzenegger is performing with an IV drip attached to his arm off-screen.

One of the weirdest things about Terminator 2: Judgment Day has nothing to do with the return of Sarah Connor or the T-1000 - it's the location of the biker bar where Schwarzenegger's T-800 gets his clothes and ride at the beginning of the film. That scene (or at least part of it) was filmed on the same night as the Rodney King beating.

Prior to filming one of the most important pieces of home video of the 20th century, plumber George Holliday was trying to sneak a peak at the star with his new camcorder. He was somewhat successful, but the important footage - the King beating - was captured later that evening. In 2021, Holliday told The Hollywood Reporter:

Before the beating, right across the street from where we lived was a biker bar, and they were filming Terminator 2: Judgment Day there. I actually have footage on the original tape of Schwarzenegger getting on the bike and riding off.

Schwarzenegger has long been a vocal proponent of physical fitness; that's kind of his whole vibe. By the time he was taking on more family-friendly roles like the one in Kindergarten Cop in 1990, he made it a point to use his platform to inspire young people to get fit.

Before agreeing to star in the film, Schwarzenegger hit the producers with a list of demands. First, he wanted Ivan Reitman to direct because they had such a great time working on Twins together. After that, he wanted to make sure the film made physical fitness a main theme. Some stars flex to get a bigger trailer; Schwarzenegger flexes to make sure kids are staying healthy.

While filming Paul Verhoeven's seminal sci-fi action tale Total Recall, Schwarzenegger had things pretty easy on set. Lounging around, however, he was in real danger. According to the star, two wild cats were on set, and when they played, it wasn't with a ball of yarn - it was with his neck. Schwarzenegger wrote in his memoir:

We had all kinds of animals on the set, including a panther kitten and cougar kitten. I loved playing with them. The trainer would bring them to my RV every Saturday when we had a two-hour break. They were maybe 5 months old at the beginning, and they were growing fast. By the last month of filming, they were 7 months old. One day the cougar was lounging at the back of the RV when I stood up and walked toward the front. With no warning, he leaped all the way across the length of the vehicle and onto the back of my neck: 100 pounds of cougar knocking me forward into the steering wheel. He could have killed me with a quick bite to the spine, but he just wanted to play.

No one has had quite so much bad luck finding stunt doubles that look the part as Schwarzenegger. Which makes sense - he's not just a big brawny guy; he has a specific body type that viewers know from the moment he appears on-screen. In 1982, while filming Conan the Barbarian, Schwarzenegger wasn't just jacked - he looked like a statue carved out of marble. Trying to find a stunt double with the same body shape just wasn't possible.

In 2016, Schwarzenegger explained that he lost weight - specifically muscle mass - for the film because he looked too much like a body builder and not enough like a barbarian king:

Working with [director and co-writer] John Milius was fantastic, because he was so hard-core. But it is true that he thought I looked too much like a bodybuilder - I needed to lose some of the cuts because I had just won Mr. Olympia and I was way too ripped to be a barbarian. So he told me to eat normally and not diet at all - I let my body fat get to around 12%.