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LOS ANGELES. — The Terminator was released 40 years ago, on 26 October, 1984.
James Cameron’s science-fiction thriller turned its star into one of the biggest Hollywood action heroes of the 1980s and 1990s — and it was all because he chose to play the bad guy, as he told the BBC in 1985.
Arnold Schwarzenegger never did anything by halves.
For his breakthrough role in The Terminator, he claimed to have spent hours blindfolded every day, practising how to take apart and reassemble futuristic weapons, “to really show that I’m an expert coming back from the year 2028 to our present time in Los Angeles”.
It was this combination of honest toil and marketing pizzazz that would rocket Schwarzenegger’s career to unprecedented heights.
His deadpan charisma helped.
Few actors could deliver a simple line like “I’ll be back” and turn it into a career-defining catchphrase.
But just as important was his willingness to put in the hours required to achieve his ambitions, and to be open about all that work.
“You have to lock into a whole different kind of emotional obligation to play a machine,” he told the BBC’s Breakfast Time on a promotional trip to London in January 1985.
“The way you walk is quite different. The way you handle your guns is different. The way your facial expressions are when you kill and all those kind of things, because you’re not supposed to have any feelings.”
Schwarzenegger’s previous films had been moulded around his imposing physique.
In his 1970 film debut Hercules in New York, the reigning Mr Universe was credited as Arnold Strong.
With the success of 1982’s Conan the Barbarian and the 1984 sequel Conan the Destroyer, his long surname became a trusted brand for action fans.
The sleek science-fiction of The Terminator was a big upgrade on sword-and-sorcery, and Schwarzenegger had a clear vision of how he wanted to present himself.
“I was offered the part of playing the good guy, the hero,” he said. “I then read through the script and I was more fascinated with the character of Terminator. It was a much more interesting character playing a robot — like in Westworld, Yul Brynner played somebody with no emotions and with no feelings and no pity for anything — and to play this kind of a character.”
Schwarzenegger said he pitched the idea that he should play Terminator model T-800 to the film’s director, James Cameron.
“I thought it was a big step forward in my career,” said Schwarzenegger, “because I played all along always the hero, like in the Conan movies, for instance.
“Also, it was a good part for me to play because it was really the first time acting in a film where I didn’t really have to rely on physical development, like in the Conan films.”
Once The Terminator was a box-office smash in the US, Schwarzenegger had his eye on the next phase of his career. “It has opened up a whole new thing for me, and of course the most important thing in acting is to be able to get roles in many different areas rather than just get typecast,” he said. — BBC.
Online Reporter