The secret to your success? I mean, one part we know is this drive, but the other is you're never satisfied. So after you become this world champion, bodybuilder and win these awards year after year after year, you decide, well, okay, that's enough. I want to become a movie star. And you end up in the movie Pumping Iron there you are. The one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger first of all, what do you think when you see that guy? How there was a long time ago and I you doesn't look like that anymore, I tell you that. But, you know, even today, it's the funny thing is, even though it was me, I'm the day. All these years later, also amazed at my drive to the head. And that is unbelievable ambition and all that stuff because there was just absolutely nothing that could stop me. It was my dream. I could see very clearly to be the greatest bodybuilder of all times. Eventually, I felt like okay, I got it. Anything that you can visualize, anything you believe in, 100% you can achieve. And this is what I did in acting and then everything else that it did. So let's pick up on the acting. You're decide now or you're going to be and you're not an actor, you're going to be a movie star. And the producers say you can never be a movie star because you got this accent so you find the perfect vehicle for your body and your accent. Conan the Barbarian. Is it true that you had to do most of the stunts yourself because they couldn't find a double who had anything like your body? I think the only thing I didn't do was the from far away. There was a scene where I grabbed the girl, Valeria, from one horse to my horse to pick her up, and the ride off that was the only thing we got away with with a stuntman. But everything that was close, I had to do everything myself. It was unbelievable, the injuries to the head when it was finished with this. I mean, it was painful. But like Miller said, pain is temporary, but the movie will be permanent. And this is exactly the way we always felt about them and we had pain then in 1984, your breakthrough role in The Terminator, this was the iconic scene here. We are. I'm a friend of Sarah Connor. I was told that she's here courtesy of Please, I can't see her. She's making a statement where she look at me. Take a while. I wait. There's a bench over there. I'll be back I read somewhere that you and the director, James Cameron, thought about how you would say that line. That's true. Your research is absolutely correct. Um, I wanted to say I will be back as is my machine. Like I will be back. And this is. No, no, I'll be back. Relax. That's it. Trust me, I will be back. This better. So it was just one of those crazy things until he finally snapped, and he says, Well, wait a minute. I'm the writer, right? You want to rewrite my script? I said, No. I said, Well, then just do your acting. I don't tell you how to act. Don't tell me how to write. And so that's how we settled it. And then it became one of the most repeated lines, movie lines in history. You've also lived larger than life, big cigars and big cars. And the question I have is, is that really you or is that part of the image you wanted to project? That you're done? No, I couldn't answer that because I always enjoyed it. I remember that Maria's father, Sargent Shriver, he will always take me down to his basement and he will say, Arnold, I know you don't smoke, but I mean, that may expose you to some good Cuban cigars, but don't talk about it. And then he will turn out the cigars. Yeah, exactly. Because if it is his Russian friends, because he was doing business in Russia for Armenia, hamburgers, selling, you know, oil deals and stuff like that. So he started clipping it for me and lighting it for me. And he was smoking down there and having a great time and having all kinds of discussions so we were kind of becoming buddies. It was not just my future kind of father in law, but we were always buddies because we were doing something together, smoking, which he was always a big believer in. So I just continued on, and my wife never complained about it because I said, Well, it was your father that exposed me the cigar smoking. He made me smoke. So she never complained about it either. By 2003, you decide you're bored being a huge movie star, you're going to go into politics. So of course you got elected governor of California. And I wonder how moved were you by the idea that millions of people in this state decided to trust you with their future and to some degree, because this is a whole new world for you, even Arnold Schwarzenegger, were you a little scared by the challenge? The key thing I'll tell you was that the people were looking for an outsider and I played that outsider all the way. As a matter of fact, I even very rarely put on a suit and the tie I kept on my alligator boots to show that I'm not going to all of a sudden flip and say, okay, oh, my God, I'm running for office. I have to change my boots. Or something, because they knew this with a head on. I kept smoking my cigars. I drove my hammer. I did everything except that was politically incorrect. And the people loved it because I said, that's the Arnold. He is not going to change. He's not going to lie about himself. This is what he's going to present. This this is this package. That's why they voted for me. And to answer your question, which is, yes, I was crying when I walked by the TV set in my bedroom to get dressed for the victory celebration. I mean, I just was absolutely stunned by that. And so happy I want to ask you about something personal in your documentary on Netflix. You talk openly and painfully about the affair that produced a son and that ended your marriage. Here you are I'm going to have to live with it the rest of my life. I mean, you know, people will remember my successes yes. And they will also remember those failures as a major failure. I mean, I had failures in the past, but, you know, in my career, I mean, this is like a whole different ballgame. This is like a whole different dimension of failure. What do you want us to understand about all that I think the documentary makes it very clear that I'm a person that has huge successes and huge failures and that was one of them. And I'm not proud of it. I despise it, but it is what it is. And I feel terrible about it. And, you know, but I don't want to get into it. And I think I said enough in this documentary, when people watch it, they will get it finally, let's talk about aging. You're very open in the documentary that when you look at yourself in the mirror now, you don't like what you see the natural effects of of the aging. How hard is that for you to grow old? Well, you know, Chris, I don't dwell on it, but you have to understand at the same time that I was a person that even in the day when I was competing and winning my seventh Mr. Olympia competition, I looked in the mirror and I was not happy with my body. So imagine now how I feel about my body today. You were quoted recently as saying that heaven is a fantasy and that you hate the idea of dying Is that because that's one thing that even Arnold Schwarzenegger cannot control? Well, first of all, I did not say that heaven is a fantasy. I said that heaven, as it is explained a lot of times, is a fantasy that you and I will meet in 50 years from now. We will be up there and doing interviews again. But in heaven, it's not going to happen. There will be. So I believe in heaven and I believe in God. And all of this if I just don't think that it will be in the same form. That's what I was saying. But I mean, you know, and I hate the age of the idea of getting old and I hate the idea of dying. I think it's very simple because, I mean, look at the life I've had. Look at this life. I mean, it's like, unbelievable. And and to have a life like that, and then eventually it will end. I mean, it's just the lifestyle.
