Arnold Schwarzenegger was not the initial actor cast for the classic role in James Cameron’s The Terminator.
OJ Simpson was cast by director James Cameron as the cyborg, and Arnie was cast as rebel fighter “Kyle Reese”.
However, Arnie, 76, claimed he showed “too much enthusiasm” for the assassin who travels across time.
“I think OJ Simpson was cast, not yet a contract signed, but was cast already to play The Terminator,” the actor told the Smartless podcast.
“So Cameron was trying to talk me into playing the Terminator and I said, ‘Nah, I want to play Reese’.”
“He said, ‘No, you understand the Terminator,” he added.
He further explained how the director convinced him for the role.
“You talk about how he has to walk and turn his head like a machine,” he recalled Cameron telling him, “‘That’s exactly what he has to do.’
“Anyway, he talked me into it,” the former Governor of California concluded.
The 1984 movie made over $78 million at the box office and inspired multiple sequels.
The former American football player Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in Los Angeles.
He was ultimately held accountable for their untimely deaths in a civil trial.
