Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the film industry’s biggest and most recognizable leading men thanks to films like Terminator and Predator. But earlier in Schwarzenegger’s career, many told him he had no chance of becoming a star.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was told he gave people the ‘creeps’
Schwarzenegger wanted to become an actor from an early age. The Terminator star grew up in poverty, and was determined to leave that lifestyle behind as he grew older. This was one of his main motivators for succeeding in his formative years.
“My own plan formed when I was 14 years old. My father had wanted me to be a police officer like he was. My mother wanted me to go to trade school. But me – I wanted to find my own passion – something I could excel in – be great in,” Schwarzenegger said on Sacramento Metro Chamber’s annual ‘Perspectives’ event in 2001. “One day, I saw a magazine in a store window. The cover showed a muscle man in an ancient warrior costume, posing like this… It said, ‘Mr. Universe Now Starring In Hercules Movie.’”
That gave Schwarzenegger the inspiration to become a bodybuilder and actor himself.
“It turned out that Hercules was an English guy who’d won the Mr. Universe title in bodybuilding, and parlayed that into a movie career – then took the money and built a gym empire,” he said. “His name was Reg Park. Bingo! I had my role model! If he could do it, I could do it!”
His plan eventually worked, but not without a few obstacles. In the beginning, Schwarzenegger was told his acting career had a ceiling because of his physique and sound.
“They used to say ‘your body is too big’. This is the 1970s and people like Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino and Woody Allen, they are sex symbols. I said ‘Oh Jesus,’” Schwarzenneger once said according to Female First. “Then they said, ‘Plus your accent gives me the creeps. We can use you maybe to play a Nazi or something like that’.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger felt his accent helped his career
Schwarzenegger didn’t listen to his detractors, and ended up becoming one of the biggest stars in the film industry following his gut instinct. He credited directors like John Milius and James Cameron, who directed Conan the Barbarian and Terminator respectively, for some of his success.
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“John Milius said in the press conference: ‘If we didn’t have Schwarzenegger, we would have to build one.’ In that moment my body became a plus,” Schwarzenegger said. “After that I did Terminator and James Cameron at a press conference said ‘what really makes this movie work is Arnie talks like machine.’ I don’t know if it was meant as a compliment.”
Schwarzenegger also felt his accent was responsible for making many of his movie lines as quoatable as they are today.
“All of sudden it became acceptable, and then it changed from acceptable to hip, then it ended up that I had the most-quoted lines in movies because I said things different and sometimes wrong,” he said.
Arnold Schwarzenegger had his voice dubbed over in ‘Hercules in New York’
Schwarzenegger got his onscreen breakthrough with the 1970 feature Hercules in New York. But at the time, Schwarzenegger was still very much focused on his successful bodybuilding career. So when he received the part on short notice, the actor felt there were things he needed to work on immediately.
“I said to myself, ‘I have to go to acting class, I have to really work on my accent. I have to really learn the language. I was not ready at all,” Schwarzenegger once said on The Howard Stern Show.
But Schwarzenegger was told he would have little if anything to say in the film as his voice would be dubbed over. However, this didn’t offend the actor at all back then, who was just excited he was achieving his goals.
“I was so amazed that I just got off the boat and all the stuff I read about Hollywood and America became true. This is incredible. I must be dreaming,” he said.
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