Michael Biehn remembers The Terminator

no one can help her except for one man it's a sign of protection you can targeted for termination Jim and I met on a regular casting call basically I'd got sent the script and it was you know one of you know hundreds that I've been sent throughout my career and I went in and met and read for him and Gail heard and they liked my reading and I got the part no no I mean I read I mean he didn't he didn't describe the film to me as much as I read the script and of course he wrote the script and so it it is you know was his vision all the way through but I will say that Jim is a little bit flexible you know sometimes when it comes to dialogue for me and I started out we were both pretty young at the time and I would make suggestions about dialogue and they usually weren't very big and he had pretty much set what he wanted in his in his head but he was pretty flexible when it came to changes and and he has been with me ever since since we did you know aliens and then the abyss together so um I found him to be you know he was like a kid in the candy store at that point you know 29 years old he had six million dollars to make a movie and he I think he was just I think he was just having a gasps having a great time actually throughout my entire career I've I've always done a lot of you know running jumping fighting you know rolling around I can jump from from from pretty high up and you know like 30 or 40 feet into boxes and stuff like that but you know when it comes to stunts you know real stunts no I didn't do any stunts I'll tell you like one of those difficult stunts I've ever seen in my life was the stunts that the stunt men did when I first came into the first shot of the movie of Kyle Reese and if you see that stunt yeah Jim's got like a low wide shot you know and he's got it on the ground and we had a stunt guy who was probably up about that high I don't know if you can see how high it is would probably about six feet or seven feet we are downtown LA and he was just laying sideways across some four-by-fours and when Jim called action he just jumped off sideways and he was completely nude of course and landed straight like onto the cement and there was no that cement was the cement it wasn't like padded cement and that going and I've been in the business for 40 years and that is one of the most difficult stunts I've ever seen in my life and if you watch that movie you can see that that cement doesn't move at all but his body kind of you know crunches in a little bit this guy you know it was all about survival and love and you know that's the thing about this movie is that I think the most important thing about this movie is that it was a love story you know and that's one of the things that I think that made this movie a success and I think it's a great love story and a lot of people think of the movie as being like this kind of like big hit and so on and so forth and it did well but it wasn't in the top 20 movies in 1984 out of all the movies that were released it wasn't in the top 20 you know really most people sold on assault on VCR because I mean it was kind of a hit but it wasn't like this thing that happened in 1984 that just blew up you know Arnold went on to do some other movies that he was very successful and then became an outright movie star after you know twins and the predator and a couple of other movies and those are what really made him I think an outright movie star although he was obviously very good The Terminator 2 Linda is one of the sweetest kindest most generous people that I have ever met in my life just her as a person and you know that kind of light carries through as an actress you know and I really believe that that I kind of fell in love with Linda while I was making the movie I happen to be married at the time she was married at the time and it was obviously you know it's not like we hooked up or anything but like she is just so lovely and so easy to work with and she's got such a great great sense of humor that also the characters that we were playing you know the fact that I was you know protecting her you know is something that like as a man you know you you want to be able to do for your for the woman that you love and I think it's that if that just kind of came naturally and that all just kind of came together well I have a you know I have some part of the movie that that I like a lot that that you know obviously one of the lines that is a favorite of most people's come with me if you want to live but there was a scene where I was being questioned and there was a camera in the wall and basically I was being questioned by the psychiatrist and I said to Jim I said Jim you know I think that like this guy would be smart enough to know that like if this guy's in charge who's in charge I mean who's who's like you know and he would know that somebody was watching him you know and then he would look up and then he would notice and see that to see that camera in the wall and then instead of that that that scene was meant to play out with psychiatrist and I said let me just take it and let me go up to that wall you know and I think if that was very very effective and and since it was my idea you know to take it right to the wall and take and scream into the wall I think that's one of my more favorite moments in the movie Jim Cameron you know Jim Cameron is a filmmaker probably you know along with Spielberg I think that those two guys as far as storytelling and special effects knowledge there's nobody that really compares to them and you know it's hard to quantify like what makes something a classic but Jim has made a few movies now our classics I mean aliens which I was in to I think is it is even a more fan friendly movie I mean I get more people and kids to I mean now it's like it's unbelievable that like kids these days that are 20 15 10 years old you know will come up and say you know Reese or Hicks or whatever you know and it's it's just shocking that movies that we made you know ten years before they were born they still have an effect on on on people you know and so you know I'm living now in a world where I'm being called iconic which I'm not even sure what that worries me it means exactly you know but I'm just I'm really really lucky to have worked with Jim Cameron you know because Jim is a genius and you know I mean he's just making his avatar movie so he can go do his fundas you know underwater stuff I'm he's a scientist that's really where his head's at and he's just genius and I don't say that about very many people

Channel: Total Film

Views: 767,123

Rating: 4.9396567 out of 5

Keywords: The Terminator, Michael biehn

Id: kWOaIRkympM

Length: 9min 20sec (560 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2015