Robert Patrick Remembers Every Time He's Played The T-1000 Outside Of 'Terminator 2'

I had the very great pleasure of sitting down with Robert Patrick at SXSW this year to discuss his fun, satirical midnight movie Tone-Deaf, in which he plays an aging boomer who hates millennials so much he decides to AirBnB his isolated cabin so he can torment and kill one.

Or course, this isn't the first brush with darkness for the actor, who has pretty much made a career out of playing bad guys. Most famously: the liquid metal T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Patrick has been very happy to discuss his role in that film for years, but when I sat down with him, I thought it might be interesting to talk about the times he played the T-1000 AFTER Terminator 2. His eyes lit up when I proposed this and he held up four fingers. Then he challenged me to list off the times he played the T-1000. And I gotta say, I didn't do too bad.

The first thing I mentioned was his cameo in Wayne's World.

The scene has Wayne getting pulled over by a motorcycle cop who turns out to be Robert Patrick pulling his already iconic "Have you seen this boy?" line to a terrified Wayne.

I remember this cameo blowing my mind because Terminator 2 had just come out. Wayne's World saw release about seven months after T2 did and back then, that kind of turnaround was crazy. These were the days where movies still stayed in cinemas for that long if they were popular and you'd be lucky to get them on home video within a year.

Mr. Patrick folded down one finger. Three more to go.

The next one to jump to mind was the odd bird that is Terminator 2 3D – Battle Across Time.

T2-3D was a fixture at Universal Studios Hollywood from 1996-2012 and Universal Studios Orlando from 1996-2017, a cheesy semi-sequel to T2 thought brought back Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Eddie Furlong and, yes, Robert Patrick for an immersive combination 3-D extravaganza and live action stage show.

James Cameron came back and directed this action-heavy story that has the T-800 escorting John Connor into the future war to attack Skynet's HQ head-on. Robert Patrick suited up again in both his liquid metal form and his stabby-hands cop outfit to give chase. While this Terminator experience is gone stateside, you can still go see it at Universal Studios Japan, so if you missed it then, it's time to make sure your passport is up to date and book yourself a trip overseas.

Another finger went down. Two left, but there was only one more I could think of. I'm going to save that one for last because Mr. Patrick had a lot to say about it.

The one I didn't get was a recent DirecTV ad that had him revisit the character to sell people on the cable provider. You remember this campaign. They had famous movie characters break the fourth wall and address the audience, telling them how great DirecTV was. Sigourney Weaver came back as Ripley and Robert Patrick did his T-1000 schtick again.

The big one, though, was the Terminator 2 Arcade Game. When I mentioned this one Patrick quickly said he had a great story about it. He wasn't lying. It's a doozy.

This arcade game traumatized me when I was a kid because I got to the very end and ran out of quarters. I vividly remember watching the "Continue?" countdown clock going down as I desperately tried to beg for more money and then it hit zero and all the time and cash I put into it went away.

(Side note: Many years later, a retro joint in Austin called Pinballz Arcade got the game and I walked up with a cup full of tokens determined to beat it and beat it I did. It's a little sad and pathetic, but honest to God I felt such a sense of accomplishment when I beat it and topped the leaderboard.)

This game was made back in the old Mortal Kombat arcade days, where they used real actors represented in the game world. Schwarzenegger and Furlong did a little bit, but the most visible in-game returning character was Robert Patrick's T-1000.

Patrick's anecdote about this game is pretty epic and includes one of the most insane bits of Terminator 2 trivia ever

"There's a story to that video game," Patrick said. "It's a long fuckin' story, but I'll tell it to you." Here it is:

"We shot the Pescadero State Hospital up in Lake View Terrace. A man bought a video camera because we were up there for several weeks and he wanted to get some behind the scenes shots of us shooting up there at the Pescadero State Hospital in Lake View Terrace. The man that bought that video camera shot a video of a police situation that happened there of a black man being brought to his knees and being beaten by a bunch of police officers. Rodney King. Swear to God. That video gets released while we're making the movie. The movie comes out and I get delivery of this arcade game while I was living in Hollywood Towers at Franklin and Argyle with my bride. My friends Elias Koteas and Vyto Ruginis were over and the day this thing is delivered is the day the Rodney King verdict comes in and the whole town erupts while we're playing this frickin' video arcade game in my apartment at the Hollywood Towers. Is that crazy?!? And the whole game is shooting at police officers... Anyway, interesting little tidbit from my point of view."

He also added that he owns a Harley dealership, Harley Davidson of Santa Clarita, and that arcade machine is there if anyone in the area wants to buy a Harley from the T-1000 and play his personal T2 arcade game.

I's bananas that the Rodney King beating was caught on tape specifically because some guy wanted to record them filming Terminator 2 on location and it's double bananas that as the riots broke out over the verdict, Robert Patrick was playing it in his Hollywood apartment with friggin' Elias Koteas.

Those were the four times Robert Patrick remembered playing the T-1000. It was maybe a couple hours after the interview when I stopped dead in my tracks and smacked my head.

We forgotten one. And it's a biggie.

In 1993's Last Action Hero, Robert Patrick once again shared the screen with his T2 co-star, Arnold Schwarzenegger... albeit briefly.

That film is all about a movie-loving kid who gets to pass through the silver screen and join his favorite action character on an adventure. This being the movie world, crazy stuff can happen, like a scene where super-cop Jack Slater leads his young fan into the LA police department, which nods to both Basic Instinct with Sharon Stone lighting up a cigarette outside and T2 with Robert Patrick brushing by young Austin O'Brien.

So, by our count, there are five times Robert Patrick played the T-1000 after completing Terminator 2. It would have been six, but the final thing that Mr. Patrick remembered was technically him playing himself... Kind of. It's complicated. So, we'll considering this bonkers Everything Is Awful quality level pitch to video store owners to stock up on extra copies of the Terminator 2 VHS as a bonus.

Patrick recalled doing this as being a bit of a painful experience, one that he has to relive on a regular basis thanks to the employees at his Harley dealership...

"It was sooooo bad," he said. "It's hysterical. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not very sure of myself. What am I? A celebrity? An actor? Or am I supposed to be the T-1000? But I'm trying to sell the VHS. Oh my God... I cringe! They put it on at my dealership and everyone at the dealership will watch it and I just sit there going, 'Well, it's a part of my life...'"

Did we miss any? I think we got them all, but if we did skip over something I'm sure you fine folks will let us know.

The full interview with Mr. Patrick and his Tone-Deaf director Richard Bates and co-star Amanda Crew will run closer to release of that film, so keep an eye out for that.