Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped into the film industry as a force to be reckoned with. He made his name popular thanks to his bodybuilding days, which earned him numerous awards and titles. And his time in bodybuilding gave him an upper hand in Hollywood as he donned the title of an action hero.
With films like Terminator, Predator, Commando, and so on, Arnold Schwarzenegger set the bar for the action genre quite high. However, since we all know action movies are filled to the brim with dangerous stunts, it’s interesting to think about whether or not Arnold Schwarzenegger has ever hurt himself on set. Well, as it turns out, he sure has. In fact, he even had two near-death experiences and he thanks his stunt doubles for pulling him out of the grasp of the grim reaper.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Near-Death Experience
Ten years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger logged onto his Reddit account where he asked fans to ask him “some crazy questions.” One of the users asked him whether he ever had any kind of a near-death experience in his life. Surprisingly, Schwarzenegger listed not one, but two such experiences.
If you have seen True Lies, you probably remember the horse chase scene like it happened yesterday. From the thrill of the chase to Schwarzenegger’s character hilariously telling the horse off, the scene makes it to the top five moments of the film. How would you feel if we told you that scene could’ve ended badly for Schwarzenegger? The actor recalled on Reddit,
“On True Lies, you probably remember the horse scene. There was a shot where the horse had to stop at the edge of a building. They built a little ramp to give the horse longer to stop. But when they were measuring the new distance from the ramp to the camera, they dropped the arm of the camera on the horse’s nose, and it went crazy, spinning and rearing. There was no rail, and the ramp was only 4 feet wide. I realized it was a bad situation and I slid off the horse right away and a stunt man grabbed me. That one was really scary. If the horse stepped a foot the wrong way, we would have fallen 90 feet to a cement floor.”
Well, there was no way that could have ended on a good note for Schwarzenegger. Can you imagine plummeting ninety feet toward a cement floor? Just thinking about it gives us goosebumps!
When Arnold Schwarzenegger Got Stuck Underwater
True Lies was not the only time Schwarzenegger had one of these terrifying moments. While filming his 2006 movie, The 6th Day, the actor performs a scene where he is hiding underwater. While everything was A-Okay during the rehearsals, things took a turn during filming. Schwarzenegger ran out of air and when he tried to swim to the top, he got trapped. Thankfully, his stunt double Billy Lucas pulled him out.
“On The 6th Day, there was a scene where I hide underwater behind embryos. I did a rehearsal with goggles and everything went fine. But when we actually shot, I couldn’t see because the water was milky. So I ran out of air and went to the top and realized I didn’t know where to get out. I was trapped. Then a hand grabbed me and pulled me out. It was my stunt double, Billy Lucas. He’d been watching from below with a tank and goggles and realized I was in big, big trouble.”
He then went on to express his gratitude to the stunt people stating, “These stories are why I will always love stunt people.” He sure has a point! Without stunt doubles having the actors’ backs, things wouldn’t be the same on movie sets. It’s high time they get the appreciation they deserve!
Source: Reddit
