“Jeez, What Did We Create? A Monster…”: When Arnold Schwarzenegger Admitted He Was Wrong and James Cameron Was Right, Interview 2012

Any form of content, whether it’s a video clip, an image, or a dialogue, could become unexpectedly popular. One of the significant examples of this is the iconic dialogue from The Terminator, “I’ll be back”. Arnold Schwarzenegger never expected that fans would love a dialogue he practiced multiple times. Regardless, the movie and the dialogue has been iconic throughout the years.

In an interview with Google Play in 2012, Schwarzenegger sat down to talk about his career and noteworthy characters. One of them being The Terminator. During this, the star revealed how the dialogue came into play for the first time and even Schwarzenegger and James Cameron even argued about the dialogue delivery.

Arnold Schwarzenegger had to bow down to his director

A clash between the visions of a director and an actor are pretty common. But in case of the Terminator series, James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger shared a friendly camaraderie. The duo would bounce back even after disagreements. That being said, neither thought that their differences would lead to the birth of a legendary dialogue.

It all started when Schwarzenegger raised concerns about the dialogue delivery. This caused some back and forth between the actor and director. The star would go on to rehearse and shoot the same dialogue for about 50 times before finalizing on one style. However, the former bodybuilder still had issues with the way Cameron wrote the dialogue – it didn’t sound like something a robot would say.

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The director argued that Schwarzenegger shouldn’t meddle with his style of writing since he didn’t hinder his style of acting. Eventually, the duo shot the dialogue, and it was surprisingly iconic!

Turns out, the director’s vision was right, and the actor was wrong. Schwarzenegger recalled how fans would ask him to say, “I’ll be back” every time. He exclaimed, “I realized then, jeez, what did we create? A monster there or something like that? It was like a big surprise to me that it became such a big hit.”

Schwarzenegger’s friendship with Cameron withstood the sands of time

Throughout all these years and multiple iterations of The Terminator, the bond between Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron remained strong. In fact, even when Schwarzenegger wasn’t a huge fan of movie premieres, the star once made an exception for his dear friend.

Schwarzenegger attended the premiere of the latest installment of the Avatar series. Although he usually avoided such events, he had to oblige in this case. He revealed in one of his newsletters that he attended to cheer for Cameron in his latest venture. The duo set friendship goals in the industry and continue to support each other through their achievements.

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