[calm magical music plays]
[Arnold] I think destiny is what we make of it.
You have to have the vision,
and then if you follow that, I think miracles can happen.
So this is exactly what my life has been about.
I saw the peak of bodybuilding. I climbed that peak.
Then I saw the other peak. The leading man.
The movie star.
And it reminds me of this famous mountain climber,
Edmund Hillary,
who was the first man to ever climb Mt. Everest.
The press asked him,
"What were you thinking about when you looked around
and you were up on this peak?"
He said,
"I all of a sudden saw another peak
far away."
"And I started planning my route."
"How do I get up there to that peak?"
In 1969,
we found out that they were casting Hercules in a movie.
Oh my God. This is now my chance to be another Reg Park.
I was not ready for it.
I didn't understand half of what was in the script.
It may not be entirely without merit, but you wouldn't like it down there.
Let me be the judge of that.
I am tired of the same old faces,
the same old things.
I had never taken an acting lesson before.
No man is superior to Hercules.
-[voice actor] I'm Hercules. -[captain] So you told me.
[voice actor] No mortal is superior to Hercules.
They replaced my voice. I couldn't speak English barely.
They told me Americans want to hear their idols talk like John Wayne,
not like you.
They changed my name
from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Arnold Strong.
The movie came out,
and it was
not a hit at all.
For five years, there was no offer
for anything.
So there was a lot of things I had to learn,
obstacles that I had to overcome, including the biggest obstacle,
when everyone says, "No, it can't be done."
[man] Why didn't you give up?
Well, because my vision didn't talk about giving up.
My vision was climbing that mountain.
[inspiration music plays]
[man] Conan!
What is best in life?
[Arnold as Conan] Crush your enemies. See them driven before you.
And to hear the lamentation of their women.
[man] His artistry came
from being really original about everything that he did.
It wasn't just about popularity. He made it cool.
The most remarkable American success story of any I know of.
We pushed each other. I wanted to push him off a cliff.
Unfortunately, I didn't find one, so I had to live with him.
Hasta la vista, baby.
He's not a hollow version of what one might think Arnold is.
It's easy to diss him as this over-the-hill '80s action star,
but he's so much more than that.
[yells]
[adventurous music plays]
[birds chirping]
[Arnold] Noodle.
Come here.
You can read with me.
Yeah. King in a castle.
Typical line for me, huh?
Right.
Wow. Here we're gonna break in.
It's a weird adjustment
to go from bodybuilding
to becoming an actor.
[doorbell rings]
I am Rico!
Oh, yes.
Where we do it?
What?
Here or in the bedroom?
Oh. Oh, here. Here. Here. Here.
[Arnold] In the '70s, the agents and the managers
and the studio executives,
they were very clear when they said to me, "You're way too big."
"You're too muscular. This is not gonna play now."
"Forget about that 250-pound muscular body."
[laughs]
Hey!
You think I'm funny, huh? You think I'm funny!
Well, you've gotta admit.
I mean, when you do that you look like some big ape or something.
Stop that!
"Let's just keep going."
"Let's work on the substance. Let's work on the acting ability."
"Your moment will come."
["Am I the Same Girl" plays]
[Arnold] By that time, I have now retired from bodybuilding.
My friend Charles Gaines told me that he's written this novel, Stay Hungry.
That they're wanting to adapt it to a screenplay.
Stay Hungry was written for a bodybuilder.
So I felt like I'm in the right place at the right time.
[man] In the novel,
I go about defining what it means to stay hungry.
Never being satisfied with where you are.
And the minute Arnold heard the phrase, uh, he identified with it.
It was his credo. It was the way he lived.
No matter how many successes he's had,
he's always hungry for something more.
Bob Rafelson bought it to make a movie.
Bob and I wrote the script together.
For the part of Joe Santo,
you had to be convincingly a great bodybuilder.
I said, "Look, there's only one guy who's gonna be right for this part,
and that's Arnold Schwarzenegger."
Bob said, "That's not gonna work. He needs a voice coach."
"He's still got too thick an accent."
Arnold made it his job to convince Bob
that he was right for the part.
[Arnold] Bob Rafelson just did Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider.
And he did a lot of famous movies. He was a really hot director.
He did not guarantee me the role.
He said, "In a few months from now, let's do a test."
"In the meantime, go to this acting class."
[phone rings]
[man] I got a call from Bob Rafelson.
And he said he has an actor
who has never really acted dramatically before.
"Would you work with him?"
For the first six weeks,
I found out everything I could about Arnold's life.
"Tell me about your father."
"Tell me about your mother."
"Tell me how it was growing up in Austria."
"Don't just talk about it. I want to know what you experience
when you talk about it. How do you feel?"
[Arnold] I realized that there are certain things that I'm missing in me.
I guarded myself so much, there are no emotions really there.
Or they're there and hidden away and they have to be brought out
in order to be a good actor.
As soon as my emotions bother my training,
I turn them off.
I have to let my mind know that it is okay to have them come out.
When I went to the office of Bob Rafelson,
in the middle of the scene, Bob says, "My hair stood up."
"I got goosebumps."
"You're in."
[fanfare plays]
[applause]
[indistinct chatter]
[Arnold] With the help of Jeff Bridges and Sally Field,
and with their intense interest to make me shine and to make the movie work,
they were at any given time ready to rehearse with me.
When are you gonna take that mask off?
[Arnold] So when you work with professionals like that,
it makes you shine too.
I don't like being too comfortable.
Once you get used to it, it's hard to give up.
I'd rather stay hungry.
I was very excited,
but Stay Hungry is not gonna come out for a while.
Now what do we do?
Two months later, George Butler and Charles Gaines came to me
and said they wanted to do a documentary about the world of bodybuilding
called Pumping Iron.
This is it. First slate, take one.
[beep]
I perform better in front of an audience.
And so here you were,
ten people did work with the documentary crew.
Then the cameras were in my face.
So therefore, you had to perform harder.
Pumping Iron and Arnold together,
is what made bodybuilding what it is.
It was the first thing that introduced bodybuilding
to the general public.
And it also made Arnold more accepted in the movie industry.
That crossed over where people saw me not as the muscle freak,
but as a personality.
-Lou, what do you think your chances are? -[Lou] I'll lose, Arnold. You're the best.
-Thank you. -[Lou] You're welcome.
[man] The wolf on the hill is not as hungry as the wolf climbing the hill.
-That's true. -[man] See?
He's not as hungry, but when he wants the food, it's there.
[Arnold] The greatest feeling you can get in a gym is the pump.
It's equal to me as it is with a girl having sex
and coming.
It's the same thing.
["Shining Star" plays]
[Arnold] 1977 was wild.
30TH FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DU FILM
At the film festival in Cannes, Pumping Iron became a sensation.
Hundreds of photographers following us. And there was a standing ovation.
♪ Wish upon a star… ♪
Am I married? No, I'm not married.
Why?
[audience laughs]
No one made a bigger splash that year than we did.
[man] The big, strapping kid pulled out of the Austrian hinterland.
[man 2] His openness and wit make Schwarzenegger the star of this film.
[man 3] …meets a publicity man's dream, Mr. Universe.
-It's too much for me. -"Too much for me." Can you do this?
Ah!
♪ No matter who you are ♪
[Arnold] I was hanging out with Andy Warhol, famous artists,
on the cover of magazines,
and talk shows.
And then Stay Hungry came out.
It was even more insane.
[announcer] The Golden Globe Awards.
[Arnold] And I'm getting a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer.
It was very clear the next thing I'm going to do is not just acting,
but be a leading man in movies.
To be a star.
♪ Shining star for you to see ♪
♪ What your life can truly be ♪
[Arnold] Can you give me the lighter?
A lot of times, people only pay attention to success.
But the reality of it is,
besides all this great success that I enjoyed, it was a struggle.
I did the movie called The Villain
with Kurt Douglas and Ann-Margret.
Would you, uh… would you like to scrub my back?
Hmm?
I better get the wood.
[Arnold] When the movie came out, one of the reviews said
the horse had better facial expressions than Schwarzenegger.
[neighs]
I was so frustrated.
It was very difficult to find an agent.
They all kind of had the same rap.
"We cannot sell you right now."
"This is the '70s."
"It's Dustin Hoffman that is in."
"Al Pacino is in."
"These are all little guys. They're totally the opposite of you."
Luckily, I didn't need the money.
Joe Weider, after he brought me to America,
taught me real estate is one of the greatest investments.
I bought my first apartment building in the '70s,
when there was huge inflation.
And I knew right away what the potential was.
Then I started buying office buildings on Main Street in Santa Monica.
I became a millionaire in the '70s
before I ever took off in the movie business.
I did not have to take the bullshit roles,
to be a character actor.
"What the fuck? I don't want to be a character actor."
"I want to the leading man."
"I want to be the star."
Just because there is difficulty, just because there's an obstacle…
I don't care what it takes.
I eventually will be up there with them.
So I said to myself,
"Those things that they say are an obstacle,
I'm gonna make them not a liability but an asset."
[applause]
[reporter chuckles] Chevy!
Are you all right?
Partially live from the West Side Tennis Club once again,
this is the Robert F. Kennedy pro celebrity tennis tournament.
And boy, do I ache.
[Arnold] Ethel Kennedy called me
and said, "Bobby Shriver brought your name up
for the Robert F. Kennedy tennis tournament."
"You will be fantastic."
"You have the right personality to entertain everyone. Would you come?"
I said, "Ethel, I've never had a tennis racket in my hand."
Everything I did, I always double-checked with my publicist,
who says, "Ethel Kennedy called you?"
"Holy shit."
"Go. Accept it."
Before the actual tennis tournament, there was a big party.
All of the Kennedys were there.
Eunice came up to me and says, "Oh, hi, it's so good to have you here."
"By the way, this is my daughter, Maria Shriver."
Then later on, when she says, "So my daughter is really fond of you."
I said, "Well, your daughter has a really nice ass."
I says, "I have to tell you that."
Eunice said, "Thank you." [laughs]
And then she walked away, kind of like, "What the hell?"
It was stupid to say. I don't even know why I said it.
Former Mr. Olympian, Mr. Universe,
Arnold is now beset by frustration,
tears the shirt off, ready to renew the fight.
When we are at the actual tennis tournament,
I could see Maria looking at me the entire time.
After it was over, she and Caroline Kennedy
came over and started chatting.
Then Maria said, "I think you should come to Hyannis Port with us tonight."
I said, "The only thing is I have to go back to get my clothes from the hotel."
I said, "I only have my tennis stuff here."
"Are you crazy? We all run around in shorts up there."
We left that night with a private plane to Hyannis Port.
I then go with her to the beach, and now we swim out in the ocean.
We climb into the boat, run around with the boat in the bay.
And so this is how crazy it was.
And it was all about, kind of like, "Let's test this guy."
The next morning, on Sunday,
everyone was rushing into my room and says, "Are you ready? Are you ready?"
"We're going to church!"
I said, "What do you mean to church? I have no clothes."
At the church, Rose Kennedy was sitting there in the front.
You had to dress up. Everyone was decked out, because Rose…
I'm sitting there like a schmuck with my tennis shorts on,
my tennis shoes, and with Bobby Shriver's shirt.
So at least I have a shirt on.
I really fell in love with Maria.
Not because she was a Kennedy,
but she just had the extraordinary personality.
I could see that little rebel in her.
I wanted to escape from my home, from Austria.
She also wanted to escape.
So that was kind of the beginning
of Maria and I.
The next year, I finally found one agent willing to represent me.
I gave the whole thing you gave me to my lawyer, and he's looking at it…
He told me, "You have an interview with Dino De Laurentis."
I mean, he's the guy that has made 500 movies.
He has Academy Awards and Golden Globes,
so he was a real big shot.
We went to his office, and the first thing I see
is this little guy
sitting behind his massive desk.
As he got up from his chair, he didn't get much taller,
and I realized he was really little.
So I said, "Why does a little guy need such a big desk?"
And he immediately went nuts.
"Ah!"
"I cannot use you. You have an accent."
"That's funny you say that," I said, "because you have an accent too."
"I barely can understand you."
"Ah. Get him out of here."
The door barely closes.
My agent starts screaming at me.
"Look at this, Arnold."
"It was one minute and forty seconds."
"It was the fastest meeting I've ever had in Hollywood."
"You had to open up your mouth."
Later that year,
Ed Pressman bought the rights for Conan the Barbarian
and fell in love with me after having seen Pumping Iron.
He felt that I have the perfect personality
for playing Conan.
Ed Pressman asked Dino De Laurentis to produce the movie.
Dino right away said, "I cannot use him."
"He is a Nazi!"
"I don't like him."
So Ed Pressman had no idea what this was all about.
Luckily, before they threw me off the project
they hired now the director John Milius.
And he says, "Dino doesn't like you."
I said, "I know he doesn't like me."
He says, "Don't worry about it. I will straighten it out."
And John Milius was a tough guy.
He goes to meetings with a .45 loaded,
puts it on the desk when he starts talking to studio executives.
Dino did not want to deal with him at all.
He thought that Milius was crazy.
Then Milius says, "I'm not gonna do the movie without Arnold."
"He's gonna be Conan."
[suspenseful music plays]
[Arnold] The shoot was tough.
Milius was crazy.
He wanted you to be out there in the cold,
freezing your ass off.
The theme of the movie is suffering.
He loved that.
[Milius] One of the things I've learned to be is ruthless.
Long after you're gone,
they'll decide whether you were any good or not, you know?
[Arnold] I did all my own stunts. There was no one around with the body.
So therefore, I had to do everything myself.
[grunts]
[dog barking]
[groaning]
God dammit.
It was fine the first take.
Then we did a second take. Third take, fourth take.
And eventually, I was now really bleeding.
[yells]
[grunting]
I was always a fanatic about preparation.
No matter how many reps, no matter what it takes,
you don't go to the set unprepared.
That's all you'll ever need.
Five in the morning, we met and did samurai training,
grappling training, broadswords
so that I can really handle and understand the movement.
[screams]
[Arnold] Hours of horseback riding,
because I wanted to feel one with the horse.
And eventually, Dino De Laurentis came to the set.
He comes up the steps.
[imitates footsteps]
Right up to me.
And he says to me, "Schwarzenegger, you're Conan."
Ah.
Turned around… [imitates footsteps] 7down again.
I remember Milius running over to me,
giving me a big hug,
and saying, "Yes! He loves you!"
"You hear what he said?" I said, "He said I'm Conan. I know that."
"This is, like, the best compliment you could ever get. You are Conan!"
"You are the character."
["That's Good" plays]
And a former Mr. Universe, who's built like a Mack truck,
stars in a new movie, Conan the Barbarian.
-[woman] What's the film about? -It's a fantasy movie.
It's an adventure movie that takes place in an imaginary time.
Arnold Schwarzenegger. Conan le Barbare.
[Arnold] I went to every country in the world to promote this,
because I wanted to show
that I'm now Arnold the actor, not Arnold the bodybuilder.
♪ Everybody, it's a good thing… ♪
[Arnold] And it worked because I established myself
as an international actor.
Conan made 90 million dollars worldwide.
I'd proven to the naysayers that a foreigner with an accent
and with a 240-pound body can actually become a leading man
and have the sales worldwide.
♪ A monumental good thing ♪
So fuck them all.
[wind blowing]
[Arnold] I've had this house now for more than 25 years.
This is a combination of Austria and America.
It's the Austrian warmth
and it is the American size.
Big!
Too big is not big enough.
That's the idea.
When I came here in the '60s and '70s,
America had problems.
The Manson murders and protests against the war.
Hippies were rising up.
An immigrant like myself doesn't look at any of those things.
I'm going to the shining city on a hill.
Yes, it maybe has its faults and awful stuff,
but I don't see that.
To go and be able to step from one world to the next,
from bodybuilding to show business and acting…
Only in America.
I fell in love with America because I saw
a black-and-white film in school.
High rises of New York.
There was the Golden Gate Bridge.
Everything looked just gigantic and big,
and I wanted to be part of that.
I love this American music. I love this American politician.
It was all America, America, America.
I applied for the citizenship.
Of course, you have to pass a test.
I practiced for it. I passed it.
In 1983, I became a citizen.
I was waiting for this moment for a long time.
Today I'm finally an American citizen,
and, uh, I feel just wonderful.
I really felt what a great gift that was
to become an American.
I was born in Austria and I'm very proud of that,
but I'm made in America.
This country needs a new administration
to make America great again.
["Working for the Weekend" plays]
In the '80s, people got past the problems of the '60s and '70s.
And then Ronald Reagan was elected,
and he didn't take any shit of anybody.
America came back.
♪ Everyone's watching… ♪
[Reagan] All of you have given the muscle, the moral courage,
and yes, the spiritual strength
that built the greatest, freest nation the world has ever known.
[bell rings]
♪ Everybody's working for the weekend… ♪
[Arnold] America was strong, and that had an effect on the movies.
All of a sudden, the people were hailing the action movies.
It was very important to have a muscular body
and look like an action hero.
♪ Let's go! ♪
So we benefitted from Ronald Reagan coming into office
and for people saying, "Yeah, America is coming back."
[man] As for Arnold,
well, he's ridden all of this straight to the silver screen.
[indistinct chatter]
[Arnold] I went to this party and met Mike Medavoy,
who is a very well-known producer.
He said to me, "We have a great, action-packed movie
that's called The Terminator.
I felt kind of reluctant. Not another stupid B movie.
But the writing was so good.
He said, "We still have one character to cast,
which is Reese."
[Cameron] I had been told by Mike Medavoy the movie was all cast.
"I got this all worked out."
O.J. Simpson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I said, "Well, which is which?"
Those two names just sounded so wrong to me.
I couldn't get out of it.
I'll have to at least see this Schwarzenegger guy.
I'm meeting Arnold at Le Dome, which was a big deal-maker restaurant.
Arnold's read the script.
He's marked it up, and he just starts talking.
I'm just sitting there watching him. It's like the sound goes down.
And I'm seeing how the light kicking off the glass windows
is hitting his face when the door opens.
I mean, I'm thinking,
"He's got a hell of a face."
[Arnold] During our conversation, it became clear no one was hooked
to O.J. Simpson playing Terminator,
because he could not be sold as a killing machine.
[interviewer laughs]
Yeah.
[Cameron] Meanwhile, he's talking about the Terminator.
He's not talking about Reese.
I said, "Look, whoever it is, he has to go and be totally unlike
a human being."
The way he steps on the motorcycle. The way he runs. The way he gets up.
Everything has to be exactly like a machine.
He says, "Why don't you play the Terminator?"
"You totally understand that character. You are the machine."
I said, "No, no, no, I don't want to play villains."
"The character only has 26 lines."
I started fighting him about it,
and he calmly just said, "Well, think about it."
I thought for three days, then I called him back
and I said, "Every time I reread it, I visualize myself more and more
playing Terminator."
I told him I'm in, and then we started prepping.
[mysterious music plays]
[Cameron] He understood that this was exactly what he needed
to counterweight this massive brand-value that he had
as "the body."
This wasn't about the body. This was about the face.
[woman] It was truly just another job.
I didn't think that it was particularly greater
than other scripts I'd read.
I mean, really clueless.
It was a very low budget, and we were all rather new at it.
I definitely had my doubts.
By our snotty definition, Arnold was a poser.
Bodybuilder pretending to be an actor.
Ah!
[Linda] But, because I was curious,
I went and stood off to the sidelines watching Arnold.
[man] That Terminator is out there.
It can't be bargained with.
It can't be reasoned with.
It doesn't feel pity
or remorse or fear.
And it absolutely will not stop ever
until you are dead.
[Linda] And I bought it. The physicality and the stiffness
and all of the things that he was implementing.
I was like, "Okay, this might work."
[pager beeping]
[Cameron] Sometime in the shoot, we're doing this police station scene.
I am a friend of Sarah Connor.
I was told that she's here. Could I see her, please?
No, you can't see her. She's making a statement.
[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 it's face, no problem.
I'll come back. I'll come back.
For some reason, Arnold didn't say, "I'll come back."
I said, "Well, just say 'I'll be back.' Keep it simple."
[Arnold] I said, "Jim, to me, it sounds funny when I say, 'I'll be back.'"
"It sounds much more machine-like if I would say, 'I will be back.'"
And he says, "Are you the writer?" I said, "No."
And he says, "Don't tell me how to fucking write."
I said, "Okay."
"I'll be back."
"Oh yeah, yeah, yeah!"
"Oh my God, I got goosebumps. It's fantastic."
I'll be back.
He was absolutely right.
It became the most quoted movie line, I think in the history of motion pictures.
So this just shows to you who was right and who was wrong.
[man] All I demand of a movie like this is a lot of action, well-done,
and a rooting interest, somebody to care about.
This movie provides both.
It's got an awful lot of action, people you care about.
And it's got an ingenious plot.
When I walked out of The Terminator, at the end, mind you,
I was thoroughly entertained.
[Arnold] What is success for box office-wise,
doesn't mean that the critics like it.
So to have Time Magazine,
their critics, pick it as one of the top ten movies
was unheard of.
It even freaked out Jim Cameron.
All of a sudden, I was on a roll.
But there was something off.
I always need an enemy.
Visiting somebody around here?
No.
In '77, Arnold won Best Newcomer.
I go, "Really?"
The '80s was an interesting time, because the definitive "action guy"
had not really been formed yet.
[tires squeal]
Up until that time, action was a car chase,
like Bullitt or French Connection,
and a film all about "intellect"
and innuendo and "verbal" this and verbal that.
With First Blood, it was about action.
You actually relied upon your body
to tell the story.
Ah!
[Sylvester] Dialogue was not necessary.
I saw that it was an opportunity, because no one else was doing this,
except some other guy from Austria…
who doesn't need to say much.
[Arnold] Sly was ahead of me in the '80s,
so it was for me to catch up.
Every time he came out with a movie, like Rambo II,
I had to figure out a way of now outdoing that.
[man] This new film you've made, Commando,
it's been, of course, compared to Rambo.
[Arnold] You can't compare those,
because mine doesn't take place in a jungle.
[man] How about the muscles? How do yours compare with Mr. Stallone's?
I mean, I'm the one that won the titles, so I don't have to defend myself.
[Sylvester] Arnold started to come on strong.
We became incredibly competitive, like Ali and Frazier
or great warriors that are traveling the same course.
There was only room for one of us.
We had a different style of acting, completely.
He was superior.
He just had all the answers. He had the body. He had the strength.
That was his character.
Knock, knock.
I would try to be the kind of guy
that's not overly gifted.
Ah!
I had to get my ass kicked constantly,
whereas Arnold, he never got hurt much, and I'm going, "Arnold."
"You could fight a dragon and you'd come back with a Band-Aid."
We were incredibly antagonistic.
I think what you need is a little iron
in your diet.
We couldn't stand to be in the same room. People had to separate us.
-Dillon! -[Sylvester] We competed about everything.
[Dillon] You son of a bitch.
[Arnold] The body being ripped and oiled up.
What's the matter?
Who is more vicious? Who is more tough?
And he goes, "Well, if Stallone kills 15, I'm gonna kill 30."
[yells]
[Arnold] Who uses bigger knives?
Stick around.
Who uses bigger guns?
[suspenseful music plays]
[tires squeal]
[Sylvester] We continued exponentially to carry cannons.
[Arnold] Sly and I were at war.
[Sylvester] He wanted to be number one.
Unfortunately, he got there. [chuckles]
Without Stallone, I maybe wouldn't have been as motivated in the '80s
to do the kind of movies that I did and to work as hard as I did.
[birds chirping]
[Arnold] I'm a competitive person.
My whole life was always like this.
When I was a kid,
my brother went into Graz to go to middle school.
The bus was like a half-an-hour walk
through a forest.
My brother was afraid
of the dark.
So it was very, very scary when he walked home.
So I had to go
and make sure that my brother didn't cry on the way home.
I wanted to prove to my parents that I was the bravest of us two.
I wanted them to be proud of me
and to show that yes,
I can make it.
In 1985,
I took Maria with me to Austria,
to Thal,
to my home village.
And then we went to the Thalersee,
that lake in my village.
It really meant a lot to me
that she got to see where I came from
and where it all began.
And I said to her,
"The boats are out there. I'll take you on a little boat ride."
When we were in the middle of the lake, I then pulled out the ring
and I proposed to her.
I pulled off the surprise.
[indistinct chatter]
The wedding was in Hyannis Port
at the same church where I first met Maria's grandmother,
Rose Kennedy.
It was the biggest wedding that I've ever been to.
At least 500 people were there.
I knew ten percent.
[woman] How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee
with the breath,
smiles, and tears
of all my life.
-[Maria] I, Maria… -[Arnold] I, Arnold…
-[Maria] Take you, Arnold… -[Arnold] Take you, Maria…
[both] In good times and bad, in sickness and in health,
I will love you…
-[Arnold] And honor you… -All the days of my life.
Now what?
You can kiss the bride.
[applause]
[joyful music plays]
[cheering]
[Arnold] I always thought I'm the luckiest son of a bitch alive.
I'm so fortunate that I'm successful in the movie business
and in my personal life.
There's very few people that can say they're successful in both.
And then, becoming a father
is a whole new ballgame.
People talk about it a lot of times, but you have no understanding
what they're talking about.
When Katherine was born,
I was in there with tears running down the eyes.
I was just so emotional
about this life
that I have just created with Maria.
And you realize this is a whole other world.
And so it was just staggering what kind of great joy it brought to us.
And, kind of, great motivation
to continue on with your career.
But now, you have to, kind of, think about this.
I always liked when you read a quote and you say to yourself,
"This is something that I could have said."
Ted Turner's "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise,"
was one of those quotes.
[curious music plays]
[man] The first time I bumped into Arnold,
we were both in Colorado skiing.
He was stepping out of the Snowmass Club.
He just suddenly stopped, and he pointed at me.
"You're that Ghostbusters guy, aren't you?"
I said, "Yeah, that's my movie."
He said, "You know, I could be a ghostbuster."
That was such a clever way for him to let me know,
"I can do comedy. It's not just action stuff."
We went out to dinner, and he caught me off guard.
He spoke very well,
and his intelligence and humor came through.
I said, "We'll make a movie one day together."
Later on, Danny DeVito and I were at some Disney studio screening,
and something about seeing those two guys within a week of each other
put that idea in my head that they might be the perfect couple
in a movie.
[Danny] Totally out of the blue, I got a phone call from Ivan Reitman.
He says, "How about you and Arnold Schwarzenegger being brothers
in this movie Twins?"
I said, "Oh, Jesus, this is, like, amazing idea."
I was in New York with my kids.
I was in front of a hotel, and I was getting out of a car,
and I was struggling with the bags, and I felt a hand on my shoulder
and then grab the bag, and I thought it was the doorman.
And I turn around, and there's Schwarzenegger.
"Yo, Danny." And I said, "Oh, Arnold! Thank you!"
So that was our first meeting.
For this really to work,
you had to believe in the truth of the story, as absurd as it is.
-[Arnold in Twins] I have a brother? -[man] Yeah.
You were sent to an orphanage in Los Angeles.
[Reitman] I felt playing a much more naive,
much more new-to-the-world character could be effective.
He's probably just like me!
[Reitman] We wrote it that way,
and part of my job as the director is to take advantage of everything you can
exposing the deeper Arnold.
I particularly did not want the one-liners as an approach.
He always thought that the way to deliver the line is
to just pitch it in a physical way,
where really the great comedians underplay things as much as possible.
I always told writers they have to write for me.
Remember, Sully, when I promised to kill you last?
That's right, Matrix, you did.
I lied.
The lines that I'm famous for, that's not how you talk in a comedy.
It was one of those interesting switches that you had to make,
where something worked for you, the more you had to work to get rid of it.
Immediately, bingo.
We kind of fit.
My name is Julius and I am your twin brother.
Oh, obviously!
The moment I sat down, I thought I was looking into a mirror!
We are not identical twins.
["Money" plays]
[Danny] And then we do the whole looking in the mirror kind of thing.
Twins was actually the first movie that made over $100,000,000 for me
at the box office.
♪ The best things in life are free ♪
♪ But you can give them To the birds and bees ♪
♪ I want money… ♪
[Danny] Everybody's got that movie on their shelf.
At least, my bank account says that everybody's got that movie on their shelf.
♪ That's what I want… ♪
I met Arnold at a Halloween party. I grew up in an Austrian family,
and so we connected on skiing
and Wiener schnitzel and lederhosen.
He said, "You know, I'm starting to make a lot of money."
"I wanna do more than real estate."
"I'd like you to manage my money. Would you help do deals?"
[laughing]
[speaking Japanese]
[man] Tonight, the wait is over.
Planet Hollywood is open in our part of the globe.
[Wachter] His influence in the mid '80s to 2000s
was tremendous.
He helped start the cigar boom.
Suddenly, cigars became this huge thing.
He was the biggest movie star in the world.
And he was always filmed with a cigar.
The big watches. Nobody wore big watches.
The Hummers. Arnold had been involved in developing the first commercial Hummer.
The whole idea of America going to bigger cars, SUVs,
and all that stuff,
that's all part of that.
That's his brand.
[Arnold] I am a stud. I am ballsy.
I smoke my stogie anywhere I want.
I don't have to find a hideout place like you.
[laughs]
It's the Schmäh. It's the Schmäh, right there.
Everything's bullshit.
[laughs]
[Arnold] To sell things, you have to have the Schmäh.
The only way I could translate it really is like "bullshit," right?
That in America, we just say bullshit.
When you go out and promote a movie, "The pump is better than coming."
It's all the Schmäh.
I just always liked big, monster military vehicles.
And driving around with a Hummer, then I have a tank.
To drive a truck like that, you gotta have a stogie in your mouth,
because then the whole thing is more ballsy.
It's just the Schmäh.
[engine revs]
-Terminator 2. He's back. -That's right.
[Arnold] Whenever you do a sequel, you cannot just do the same story.
In Terminator 1, I was this evil machine
that just destroyed anyone and everyone that came in my path.
And in the second one,
I say, "I swear…"
I will not kill anyone.
[Cameron] At first, Arnold was absolutely against the idea.
Arnold and I were gonna meet and talk about the script.
So I sit down. I could see he's not his usual cheerful self.
I go, "What's the matter? You didn't like it."
He goes, "Jim."
"I don't kill anybody."
Come with me if you want to live.
[Cameron] "Now you're the good guy, the defender, the protector."
He said, "Okay. All right."
"Can I shoot them in the leg?"
I said, "Yeah, let's just shoot them in the leg. How's that?"
He goes, "No, that's good."
[screams]
-What the hell are you doing? -He'll live.
[Arnold] A few days before we start, Jim Cameron says,
"Let's all get together and have a nice dinner."
Linda comes in and she takes her sweater off,
and I'm looking at her arms.
Veins on the biceps
and then the triceps.
Everything was like a bodybuilder, except miniature.
I do remember the fierce pride that I had
to show to Arnold.
[Arnold] I said, "I can't believe that son of a bitch
is fucking more cut than me."
[Cameron] When I made a film with Arnold, I had him speak to the cast.
Actors usually try to share a little truth
of the acting process.
Arnold says forget all that.
He saw
half the job was performing the film and half the job was promoting the film.
[Arnold] You have to be involved yourself.
You have to go in there and just say, "Here's why you should see this movie."
It doesn't matter if the other stars say no,
because they're spoiled brats.
"I am a star. I don't sell movies."
"You have to sell the movie. I am the artist."
Bullshit. You have to sell everything.
No matter what you do in life, you have to sell it.
And the movie didn't make, like, $50,000,000 like the first one.
It made over $200,000,000 domestically. It became the highest-grossing movie.
[man] Arnold Schwarzenegger terminated his box office competition.
[man 2] Why does Arnold want to play a good cyborg?
[woman] I think there will be a day
you'll see him running for the Senate in California,
and he didn't want to ruin it by turning around
and being the bad guy he was back in 1984.
And it's just a tiny theory, but that's mine.
-You heard it here first. -Yes.
There probably isn't a person anywhere on the planet
who doesn't know who that man behind the screen is.
He's the number one box office star in the world.
Today, his latest film opened. It's called Last Action Hero.
Please give it up for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
[cheering and applause]
[Arnold] When Last Action Hero came out,
I had reached my peak after Terminator 2,
having the most successful movie of the year worldwide.
Not just in America, but worldwide.
So at that point, it was everyone was gunning to take me down.
[man] Not everyone is taking to Arnold Schwarzenegger's wild new movie,
The Last Action Hero.
[grunts]
[action music plays]
[man] In fact, some of the reviews have been downright nasty.
Last Action Hero flies uncommonly close to turkeydom.
[Arnold] I cannot tell you
how upset that I was.
It hurts you.
It hurts your feelings. It's embarrassing.
You get embarrassed when you watch the box office.
[Cameron] I remember calling Arnold on Saturday morning,
and I hadn't really read the news.
I said, "How'd the picture open?"
He said…
[imitation Arnold] …"Terrible."
And he sounded like he was, like, in bed crying.
He took it as, like, a deep blow to his brand.
I think it really shook him.
I said, "What are you gonna do?"
He says,
"I'm just gonna hang out by myself." [laughs]
That's the only time I've ever heard him down.
[Arnold] I didn't want to see anyone for a week,
but you keep plodding along.
And my mother-in-law also said this all the time,
she says, "Let's just move forward. Let's just move forward."
"Let's go. Move. Move. Move. Move."
It's a great message.
After Last Action Hero came out,
Bobby Shriver called me.
He says, "You should see La Totale!"
A little French movie that no one saw.
It was very entertaining and very well done.
And the concept was so refreshing and so new.
So I called Jim Cameron, and I said… I said to him, "Jim."
"You gotta see this film."
Arnold's bringing me a project that he believes in.
He'd never done that before.
I thought we could have fun with comedy.
I knew Arnold had done comedy. He had a great sense of humor.
And that it would be a good action film.
He said, "Let's make it big." And I said, "Yeah, let's make it big."
May I see your invitation, please?
Sure, here's my invitation.
The phone in my bedroom rang, and I heard this…
"Hi, Jamie. It's James Cameron."
"I've written a movie for you and Arnold Schwarzenegger."
Plumber called. He says he has to dig under the slab or something.
It's going to cost $600.
Mmm, that's okay.
Well, it's not okay. It's extortion.
So what did you tell him?
I slept with him and he said he'd knock off $100.
That's good thinking. Bye, Honey.
[Jaime] Arnold is incredibly generous to his crew and his cast.
His door is open all day long.
Maria was there. The kids were there.
It was lovely.
I was as free in that performance
as I had ever been in my life.
[action music plays]
Come on, baby.
[woman screams]
[Jaime] And then, the movie is finished.
And the phone rang.
It was Jim Cameron,
and he said, "I went to Arnold,
and asked him
if I could put your name above the title of the movie."
So much effing money is spent on lawyers and agents
for credits.
It's a big business.
With all of his big bravado and ego
and all the things that have made him,
he had the grace
to make some room for me.
It was a very moving moment for me,
and that movie, of course, changed my life.
[man] Like a phoenix rising from the dust of Last Action Hero,
Arnold Schwarzenegger is back stronger than ever.
True Lies is true gold. Claimed the number one spot.
[Arnold] So then I was back again.
"Arnold is back. When he says, 'I'll be back,' he's back."
♪ Back with another one Of those block rockin' beats… ♪
[Arnold] Then we came out with Junior
that Ivan Reitman directed. It became a successful movie.
I'm gonna be a mama too.
♪ Back with another one Of those block rockin' beats… ♪
[Arnold] And then the next movie, Eraser, made over $100,000,000.
[Arnold in Batman and Robin] What killed the dinosaurs?
The Ice Age!
[Arnold] And then was Batman and Robin.
And everything was just dandy and fine.
It's a play.
Life is a play.
You have to be able to take the failures with the successes,
and that's just the way it is.
[Arnold] Hi, listen. What are you doing this afternoon?
Come over to my house. My mother makes good apfelstrudel.
[speaking German]
[Arnold] Okay, no apple strudel.
When my brother passed away, and when my dad passed away,
then I was the only one left in the family.
So now I had to really shift gears and think much more about my mother.
In 1974, she stayed with me for a few weeks and she loved it.
And I started to really appreciate my mother much more,
hanging out with her and having a good time.
She went on every movie set.
She took pictures on the movie set.
She made her photo albums, took it home to Austria,
and then she showed off over there with her friends.
Very, very proud of me.
In Austria, there's two things you don't talk about ever.
About your finances
with anyone
and about your health problems.
In 1997,
after I was finished with Batman and Robin,
my mother was staying with us.
She got up in the morning,
and Maria said, "Arnold is in the hospital."
"He's having heart surgery."
And my mother said, "What?"
After I woke up from the surgery,
the doctor sat down in my bed and held my hand.
He says, "Arnold, I'm so sorry."
"It didn't work."
"One of the valves blew out and you started collecting blood
in your lungs."
"We have to have another surgery right away."
They started preparing me for the second surgery.
I said to myself,
"What the hell is going on here?"
"No one has given me any anesthesia yet,
and the guy is standing here with the knife."
The doctor said to me,
"We want to wait until the last second. I don't want to lose you."
I said to myself, "What?"
Then, they did give me the anesthesia, and I wiped out.
It was kind of touch and go.
Sixteen hours later, I woke up again.
The surgery was successful.
My mother came into the hospital
and gave me a lot of hell for not telling her,
and "How could you do this to me? I'm your mother."
"You're supposed to be able to tell me anything."
It was just too much for her.
A year later,
I got a phone call
that my mother was visiting my dad
at the graveyard,
and right there on the grave, she passed away.
Yeah, so…
My mother passed away
from the same valve problem that I had.
She refused the surgery.
She just always said, "If God wants me,
he can have me."
I immediately felt this sense of, "Well, now what?"
It was so deep inside me that I never thought about it,
that I'm maybe still trying to look for approval from my mother.
Who am I doing all this for now?
[crowd singing] ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
[cheering]
I want to, uh, thank everybody for coming here this evening.
Quite a year for us.
I don't have to go into that,
but anyway, I met Arnold two weeks after he turned 30.
In two weeks we'll have been together 20 years, and…
[cheering]
…which, uh, is an accomplishment. [chuckles]
Let me tell you.
[Arnold] After the surgery, I was not working for a year.
Studios started calling my agent and saying,
"I think we're gonna postpone this movie,"
or "I think we're gonna go and rethink this and that."
And there were changes made,
where all of a sudden I started losing movies.
Here's the action star.
The guy that cannot be killed on the screen
almost died.
I was concerned
my career is going to come to a grinding halt.
I knew, the first movie that I do,
the insurance company will be sitting on the set, watching every take
to see if there's any difference
between my performance now after the heart surgery
versus what it was.
[angelic music plays]
Please, God.
Help me.
Give me strength.
[Arnold] And that's when I said to myself, "Okay."
"This is a new day."
"Let's just move forward."
Action!
You want collateral? Here.
[Arnold] There was a time when I was the number one movie star in the world.
I could walk into Sony,
Warner Brothers, Universal Studio, Disney, wherever it is,
and they would offer me a movie.
But that's not really what I was looking for.
I was looking for another challenge.
Just like in bodybuilding, I've done everything that I could do.
There was nothing anymore to conquer. It was the same thing over and over again.
Let's do something different. Something more exciting.
When I met Maria
and I was exposed to all the conversations in Hyannis Port,
always talking about politics and all of the different issues,
I found it fascinating.
And also the whole idea of serving people.
Eunice, Maria's mother, introduced me to the Special Olympics,
and then I fell in love with it.
And then President Bush appointed me to be
the Chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
I realized how much fun this is.
All right! Yeah!
I was happier than being on a movie set.
I made all the money that I've made because of America.
So why wouldn't I stop that now and give something back?
Over a period of years,
a new vision started shaping.
[Arnold in German] Politics interests me very much.
Many even say that sooner or later,
after the whole film career, I maybe move on to politics.
-[woman] Schwarzenegger the politician? -Yes, exactly.
[in English] As we look to the future, why do I keep hearing people talk
about you moving into politics?
[woman] Ladies and gentlemen, Arnold Schwarzenegger!
[Cameron] I lost any skepticism
to put any limits on him.
[cheering]
A lot of history makes sense to me
through the lens of having been pals with Arnold for 40 years.
[Wachter] His whole life, you could see he was heading towards something
so much bigger.
I believe politics was his destiny.
Everything else was a warm-up act.
[woman] He understood the political system itself is the box,
and he blew up the box.
We are here, ladies and gentlemen, to clean house.
[Arnold] You see this peak?
I gotta climb this.
No matter what it takes,
I'm gonna go after it.
["Lust for Life" plays]
♪ Here comes Johnny Yen again ♪
♪ With the liquor and drugs ♪
♪ Well, I'm just a modern guy ♪
♪ Of course I've had it In the ear before ♪
♪ I got a lust for life ♪
♪ A lot of lust for life ♪
♪ I got a lust for life ♪
♪ Well, I'm just a modern guy ♪
♪ Of course I've had it In the ear before ♪
♪ I got a lust for life ♪
♪ A lot of lust for life ♪
♪ I got a lust for life ♪