Arnold Schwarzenegger never anticipated getting into a fistfight with a woman in all his years being the face of the action movie industry!
Written by: Diya
Reviewed by: Divyashree
Arnold Schwarzenegger accomplished a lot in his life. After being born in an obscure little village in Austria in 1947 and growing up with a temperamental father who used to serve in the Nazi Party during WWII, he climbed the social ladder by winning bodybuilding competitions across Europe, immigrated to the US in 1968, married into the high-profile Kennedy family in 1986, became the Governor of California in 2003, and remains the most famous actor today with a high celebrity net worth of $1 Billion.
Schwarzenegger remains one of the rare handful of people who symbolizes and proves that the American Dream is attainable, after all. The actor’s shift from bodybuilding to Hollywood to politics shows an ambitious turn for a man who merely lacked the tools he needed at birth to rise to his full potential and so taught himself to grab the bull by its horns when the time was right. But, all of his learnings and experiences came to a standstill when he came face-to-face with a woman on a movie set while filming Terminator 3 in 2002.
Terminator 3 – A Movie Marred By Many Troubles
The long-winded history of the production of Terminator 3 began shortly after the success of T-2 in 1991. For over a decade, the rights to the Terminator franchise bounced around between studios, interested third parties, auction houses, producers, and movie financiers. While James Cameron was more than happy to let go of his creation – claiming he was happy with the perfect story he told with T-2 and didn’t want to overstay his welcome – later felt sour over the rights being owned by the Rambo producer, Andrew Vajna.
Meanwhile, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines struggled in development hell. With the movie’s rights being all over the place throughout the ’90s, Cameron refusing to return as a director, Schwarzenegger feeling loyal to Cameron despite wanting to do a third film, Linda Hamilton wanting to end her arc with T-2, the impending rumors of a writers’ strike followed by an actors’ strike in 2001 – several factors contributed to halting the production of Terminator 3 from ever launching off the ground.
Related
James Cameron’s New Promise Can be the Only Thing That Can Save Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dying Terminator Franchise
In 2002, Kristanna Loken, Claire Danes, and Nick Stahl finally began to give shape to a proper cast lineup alongside the titular Terminator, i.e. Arnold Schwarzenegger returning as an all-new T-800 unit. Setting itself apart from its predecessors, Terminator 3 featured Loken as a female Terminatrix – the primary villain of the film, unlike the prior male ones. While this came as a big win in terms of originality, Schwarzenegger was not as happy as one would expect him to be for finally returning to his dream role after 12 years.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Faced a Tough Decision
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s role in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines wasn’t unlike what he was tasked with in the previous two films. Walk and talk like a futuristic, cybernetically enhanced robotic killing machine while fighting against another futuristic, cybernetically enhanced robotic killing machine. However, the problem in this film was unlike any other he had faced before.
In all his years starring in films like Terminator, Predator, and Commando, Schwarzenegger never had to go up against a woman in an action scene. Terminator 3 based the entire film’s concept on Kristanna Loken’s T-X being the thorn in Schwarzenegger’s path. It did not help that Schwarzenegger was returning to the franchise after 12 years and had a lot of hopes riding on him.
In an interview with Black Film, the actor claimed:
What was challenging about doing it with a woman were the fight scenes. I had no training of how you grab a woman, how you throw her against a wall, how hard can you really pick her up and throw her. How hard can you hit her? I had to rely on Kristanna to tell me that you can go harder, you can grab me rougher, you can imagine a guy standing in front of you.
It took five or six takes to get up to that level of rough handling her because I felt uncomfortable with it. She was a great team player. She trained well with the stunt coordinators that she could handle it and she didn’t mind taking a few bruises and pains and aches here and there. She just went for it.
Related
“We wanted to bring the horror back”: Terminator Zero Comes the Closest to Original James Cameron Classic in 1 Area That Makes it Infinitely Superior to All the Movies
Loken was as equally invested in the film being her big break after previously only having smaller roles in shows like Boy Meets World and Law & Order. The actress claimed that her relative anonymity played out in favor of the film since being a non-famous person “makes the machine figure in the film more believable.”
Loken underwent six weeks of training to mold into her role as T-X, learned Krav Maga, put on 14 pounds of muscle mass, and took a mime class to mimic her character’s robotic movements. Schwarzenegger couldn’t have been paired with a more dedicated partner.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines isn’t currently available for streaming.
