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Arnold Schwarzenegger Recounts His Highs And Lows In ‘Arnold’ Docuseries On Netflix

Bruce Haring
·3 min read

Arnold Schwarzenegger is being dissected in Netflix’s new three-part docuseries, Arnold, which looks back on his multipronged career as a bodybuilding champion, California Governor, and movie star. The series is now streaming on the service.

The stories are flowing from the 75-year-old Schwarzenegger in the series, which takes a candid look at his Hollywood era. One of the anecdotes concerns his role in the action-comedy flick The Last Action Hero, a film which was not well-received.

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Schwarzenegger played action hero character Jack Slater in the 1993 film, the hero who bonds with a young movie fan, played by Austin O’Brien, in an imaginary action film. Critics and fans weren’t ready for a spoof of action films, and it grossed just $50 million worldwide.

“When Last Action Hero came out I had reached my peak after Terminator 2, having the most successful movie of the year worldwide,” Schwarzenegger says in the docuseries. So when the reviews for the (next) film rolled out, “I cannot tell you how upset that I was,” he says. “It hurts you. It hurts your feelings. It’s embarrassing.”

Things were so bad, Schwarzenegger practically pulled the covers over his head.

James Cameron, his director in the highly successful Terminator films, said he phoned him shortly after The Last Action Hero opened.

“He sounded like he was in bed crying,” Cameron says. “He took it as a deep blow to his brand. I think it really shook him. I said, ‘What are you gonna do?’ He said, ‘I’m just gonna hang out by myself. That’s the only time I’ve ever heard him down.”

“I didn’t want to see anyone for a week,” Schwarzenegger acknowledged. “But you keep plodding along. And my mother-in-law also said this all the time: ‘Let’s just move forward.’ It’s a great message.”

A better time was had during the making of The Terminator. Cameron and Schwarzenegger recalled the creation of one of filmdom’s most classic lines.

“Sometime in the middle of the shoot, we’re doing this police station scene,” said Cameron. “The line is, ‘I’ll come back.’ It wasn’t meant to be like a big moment at all. It was literally meant to be, on its face, ‘No problem, I’ll come back.’ Arnold didn’t say, ‘I’ll come back.’ I said, ‘Well, just say “I’ll be back.” Keep it simple.'”

Schwarzenegger balked at that. He claimed it would be “funny” for a machine to say the line, and wanted to change it to, “I will be back” because it sounded more “machine-like.”

Cameron didn’t like it. Schwarzenegger describes the argument as, “He says, ‘Are you a writer?’ and I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Well, don’t tell me how to f*cking write.'”

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