Arnold Schwarzenegger Held A Gun To A Producer's Head While Making The Terminator

To immediately address a serious question posed by this headline: It was a fake gun. I know there are some wild stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1980s, but my dude wasn't that wild.

OK, let's back up for a minute. James Cameron's 1984 sci-fi horror classic "The Terminator" is one of the most amazing, down-and-dirty, "holy crap, this is a great idea executed perfectly" movies of that entire decade, and a huge part of the reason for its success is Arnold Schwarzenegger's terrifying portrayal of the story's robotic antagonist. (Technically, he's a cybernetic organism; as we learn in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," the character is made of "living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.") When Michael Biehn's Kyle Reese describes the Terminator as something that "can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead," it's one of the most bone-chilling moments in the film. How the heck is Sarah Connor supposed to survive against something like that? And when a hulking Austrian former bodybuilder like Arnold Schwarzenegger is embodying that killing machine? To quote another James Cameron movie, it certainly seems like it's "game over, man."

The stories about "The Terminator" are legion – the studio initially wanted O.J. Simpson to play the title role, Arnold wasn't interested in playing the villain, "I'll be back" almost didn't become a significant line, the film almost had a happy ending, etc. — but here's one I'd never heard before.

It sounds like John Daly, one of the executive producers of "The Terminator," was one of the first people Cameron spoke with after having a fateful meeting with Schwarzenegger. The actor wanted to play the Kyle Reese role, but over the course of their lunch, Cameron became convinced there was a better part for him instead. When Cameron saw Daly afterward, as he recalled to the BFI in 2021, the writer/director told the producer, "Well, he's wrong for Reese. But he'd make a hell of a Terminator."

But when production was underway and Daly visited the set, let's just say he didn't have the best experience. Here's how Cameron remembered something Daly likely never forgot:

"The first time John Daly visited the set — it was the night we were shooting the Tech Noir club scene — he was standing next to Arnold proudly smiling, and rocking on his heels. Arnold looked over at him, in full Terminator wardrobe, and in his Austrian accent said 'John, every time I see you, you're always smiling.'

Then he pulled out his massive .45 automatic, jammed it under John's jaw, and said 'Personally I hate that.' John went pale and left shortly thereafter. He never came on set again when Arnold was filming."

I have no idea why Schwarzenegger would do this — if it was some kind of power play move, an intimidation technique, a practical joke, or what. Daly died in 2008, so I couldn't reach out to him to get his side of the story. But I'm left to assume that he must have engaged in the only imaginable response to that situation, which, obviously, is to immediately s*** yourself, then walk up to the nearest person and say, in a monotone accent, "Your clothes. Give them to me. Now."