Arnold Schwarzenegger has revealed that film producers originally had another celebrity in mind to play The Terminator — none other than OJ Simpson.
The former California governor discussed the casting decision that made him a film star in the 1970s in a new Netflix docuseries about his life, telling how producers had originally thought he should play the role of rebel fighter Kyle Reese and then-football star Simpson should play the killer robot.
But as the production moved forward, Schwarzenegger said, ‘no one’ at at Orion Pictures —which distributed the blockbuster movie — thought Simpson would be believable as a ‘killing machine.’
James Cameron, the director, then pushed him to take on the role, but the now 75-year-old said he was reluctant to do so.
It is just the latest revelation from the docuseries, which chronicles Schwarzenegger’s life, acting career and his transition to politics.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, 75, revealed in his new Netflix docuseries how OJ Simpson was originally cast to be the Terminator
In the series, which is set to premiere Wednesday, Schwarzenegger was joined by Cameron as the two reminisced about his rise to fame in the late 1970s.
During their discussion, Cameron recounted how Mike Medavoy, the cofounder of Orion Pictures, whittled down the cast to Simpson as Terminator and Schwarzenegger as Kyle Reese — who was later played by Michael Biehn.
‘I had been told by Mike Medavoy that the movie was all cast,’ Cameron said, recalling how Medavoy told him: ‘I got this all worked out. OJ Simpson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.’
‘I said, “Well, which is which?” Those two names just sounded so wrong to me.’
Then when Schwarzenegger appeared on set, Cameron said he was instantly struck by the body-builder’s looks.
‘I’m just sitting there watching him. It’s like when the sound goes down, and I’m just seeing how the lights kicking off the glass windows is hitting his face when the door opens. I mean I’m thinking, “He’s got a hell of a face,”‘ the famed director said.
Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger says in the documentary, ‘no one’ at Orion Pictures was convinced Simpson could pull off a killer.
‘During our conversation, it became clear no one was hooked to OJ Simpson playing Terminator because he could not be sold as a killing machine,’ the actor said.
But Simpson would later become infamous when he was implicated in the murder of his wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman just one decade after The Terminator was released.
Simpson was acquitted of the crime in 1995, but a civil lawsuit against the once well-liked footballer found him liable in their deaths just two years later.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
