Arnold Schwarzenegger, known for his iconic role in ‘Terminator,’ revealed that he once sought the assistance of an accent-removal coach during the early stages of his Hollywood career. In those days, the actor grappled with a pronounced Austrian accent and believed that eliminating it would facilitate his ascent in Hollywood.
Interestingly, it was this very accent that ultimately secured him the role in ‘Terminator.’ James Cameron, the director of the first film in the franchise, recognized that Schwarzenegger’s accent made him sound like a machine, making him a perfect fit for the role. Schwarzenegger shared this anecdote during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show and acknowledged that he had a team of coaches to prepare for his Hollywood debut, including an English coach, an acting coach, and the accent-removal coach.
“I had an English coach, and an acting coach, and a speech coach, and an accent-removal coach who has passed away since then, but I mean, I should have otherwise gotten my money back,” Schwarzenegger told Norton. He described the rigorous hours he spent with the accent-removal coach, working on perfecting his pronunciation of words like “three” and “wine,” which differ significantly from German, the official language of Austria.
Schwarzenegger humorously recollected his coach’s efforts, saying, “I remember he’d say, You know you always say ‘sree.’ It’s ‘three,’ with a T-H.’ So he had me say, ‘Three thousand three hundred and thirty-three and one-third,’ with the T-H’ and not with the S, he said. We would say, ‘This is a nice vine.’ But it’s actually ‘wine,’ right? So the guy had me say ‘A fine wine grows on vine.’ I was saying things like that over and over again. It was very helpful, but it didn’t get rid of my accent.”
While Schwarzenegger didn’t completely shed his accent, it turned out to be an asset in his journey to stardom. He found success as an action star with roles in films like 1982’s ‘Conan the Barbarian’ and 1984’s ‘The Terminator,’ where his distinctive accent added a unique quality to his portrayal of the cyborg killer antagonist.
Recalling his experience working on ‘Terminator,’ Schwarzenegger shared, “When I did ‘Terminator,’ Jim Cameron said, ‘What made ‘Terminator’ work and why it became successful is because Schwarzenegger talks like a machine.'” His iconic role in ‘Terminator’ solidified his status as a Hollywood legend. Recently, Schwarzenegger has been involved in projects like the Netflix series ‘Fubar’ and the documentary series ‘Arnold.’
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