Arnold Schwarzenegger found worldwide fame when he portrayed the role of Terminator in James Cameron’s 1984 movie The Terminator. Starring in the iconic role gave Schwarzenegger the spotlight that he needed in Hollywood but it wasn’t without problems.
With James Cameron at the helm of the project as the director and the writer, Schwarzenegger had once found himself opposing Cameron. Discussing how Schwarzenegger was going to say his iconic “I’ll be back” line, Cameron simply stated that he was the writer of the movie and Schwarzenegger would do exactly what he says!
Arnold Schwarzenegger Did Not Know His Dialogues Would Become Famous
Since the character of Terminator is a robot disguised as a human, Schwarzenegger thought logically that his pronunciation would be as clear as possible since he’s a robot. In the script of the film, James Cameron had written the iconic line “I’ll be back” but Schwarzenegger did not feel it right.
Sitting down opposite Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the late-night show host and Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about the epic one-liner that made him famous. Stating how James Cameron eventually shut him up by saying that he was the writer of the movie, Schwarzenegger had to bow down and say the line Cameron’s way.
“No, I have to say that most of the lines that I’ve used, we did not know ahead of time that they’re going to be funny lines so they’re going to be the lines that people will repeat over and over again”
The actor later revealed his hilarious interaction with James Cameron and how a simple matter of pronunciation led to a fight between the director and Arnold Schwarzenegger with James Cameron shouting “Are you the f—king writer here?”.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger And James Cameron Fought
As the interview continued, Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed that he and director James Cameron had a pretty big fight on how the Terminator would deliver the line “I’ll be back”. As reported by Jimmy Kimmel Live, here’s what the actor had to say in his defense.
“I remember we had in the beginning, a dispute, the director and I because I didn’t feel comfortable with this ‘I’ll’. This ‘LL’. So I said to him ‘Why don’t I just, since I already talk like a machine, I might as well just say ‘I Will be back'”.
He further continued,
“I said ‘Well, it sounds better to me. Let’s just do ‘I Will be back” and he [James Cameron] says ‘Arnold, are you the f—king writer here? Well, I’m the writer so I decide what we’re going to do and we’re going to stay with ‘I’ll be back'”
Lucky for the world, the line became one of the most quoted one-liners of all time. The Terminator went on to receive a rating of 8.1/10 on IMDB and a whopping 100% on Rotten Tomatoes! The 1984 film is available to stream on Max in the U.S.
Source: Jimmy Kimmel Live
