It is hard to imagine Hollywood without Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, that could have been a possibility if the Austrian Oak had listened to studio executives who told him that there was “no room in Hollywood” for a 250-pound hulking man-mountain. What a shame he didn’t listen.
Schwarzenegger has been a constant presence in Hollywood for more than 50 years – discounting his time away as Governor of California – starring in action movies, comedies, action movies, horror…oh, and a little more action as well. But while speaking to GQ in a lengthy discussion on his career, the Terminator star explained that when he made the decision to go into acting it was an uphill struggle.
“When I was going from bodybuilding to the movies and I got an agent and the agent introduced me to studio executives, they said, ‘What are you talking about? You want to get into movies? You weigh 250 fucking pounds. This is the seventies! Not the sixties where they did Hercules movies. Do you understand that Woody Allen now is a sex symbol? Do you know that Dustin Hoffman is a sex symbol? Do you know Al Pacino is a sex symbol? This is the new breed. They all weigh 145 pounds. You weigh 250. There’s no room for you in the movie business.’”
Although some would have taken this as a sign to try and fit in with the current trend, that was not exactly how Schwarzenegger dealt with things.
“But I did not feel like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to cut down to 150 or 145.’ No. I continued on with my training and I continued over with my thing because I said to myself, ‘If I make bodybuilding really popular, then people want to see bodybuilders also on the screen.’ And exactly this would happen after Pumping Iron came out, they said, ‘Oh, this guy has a personality. I think he could act. Let’s go and tie up the Conan rights.’”
Arnold Schwarzenegger Was Determined to Be a Leader in the Industry
You would need to be quite foolish to try and tell Arnold Schwarzenegger what to do, and as it turned out, the actor did know better that the executives that decided that the time for muscular leading men had passed. Within no time at all, he was suddenly pioneering the return of macho muscle men into the movie industry.
“And then all of a sudden they started developing Conan and then they asked me to do movies like Stay Hungry, which had bodybuilding in there. And then they asked me to do the Streets of San Francisco, which had crazy bodybuilding in there. As soon as I could show my talent, they started dusting off all these old scripts.
“And then bang, I broke through. And so I did not shy away from the muscles. I did not go say, ‘Oh my God, I missed the time, the right decade, what should I do now?’ What do I care about the new look? We are going to be around for decades. So we are going to go through cycles, yes, but I don’t have to be the follower. I’m going to be a leader.”
It is fair to say that Schwarzenegger has been that and more. Even now, he continues to add to his list of movie credits, as well as advocating for several bodybuilding events. And all because he decided that being told there was no room for him in Hollywood meant he had to make room. Schwarzenegger most recently concluded his Netflix series, FUBAR, which was canceled after two seasons, and will soon appear in the festive action flick, The Man with the Bag.
- Birthname
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Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger
- Birthdate
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July 30, 1947
- Birthplace
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Thal, Styria, Austria
