Arnold Schwarzenegger has revealed that he fought with Terminator director James Cameron over his character’s now-iconic “I’ll be back” line.
In the new Netflix series, Arnold, Cameron recalled how in the scene, the Terminator was supposed to say, “I’ll come back.” He was in a police station and the intent, in the script, was for the Terminator to explain to officers that he would simply come back another time. It “wasn’t meant to be like a big moment at all,” Cameron said (via Insider).
For whatever reason, Schwarzenegger said, “I’ll be back” instead, according to Cameron. Schwarzenegger went on to say that he wanted to make his character sound more like a machine so he pitched the idea for the Terminator to say “I will be back,” and then things got testy.
“‘And he says, ‘Are you the writer?'” Schwarzenegger recalled Cameron saying to him. “And I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Well, don’t tell me how to f**king write.'”
In the end, Schwarzenegger said he now believes that Cameron’s choice of words–“I’ll be back”—was the right one. “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,” Schwarzenegger said.
Schwarzenegger was one of the biggest movie stars of the ’80s and ’90s. He recently revealed that he was paid $30 million to star in 1997’s Batman & Robin as Mr. Freeze.
In other news, Schwarzenegger’s new show, Fubar, is out now on Netflix. The actor and former bodybuilding champion also recently discussed what happens when we die.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
