Original subtitles

By the late '80s, Arnie was already a Colossus.

A Colossus who wanted to be a Titan.

He's got a big ego, but he also has fun.

However, this pony

appeared to have only one trick.

Had enough?

One liners.

- Right? - Wrong.

And one option.

This guy's an action star.

But when Arnold met Ivan...

They met skiing.

...his next role would not only go offbeat...

This was his first comedy.

..."Twins" would go off the charts.

I think Arnold, I read, made $40 million from it.

So if Arnie could do action and comedy,

surely it was time to go all in on an action comedy.

Sorry.

Re-enter the man who sincerely believes so.

Jim had the voice of God and was screaming the whole time.

And was willing

to put his money where his mouth was.

This wasn't CGI.

With a film called "True Lies."

No one scene or sequence is cheap.

It was the first 100 million dollar movie ever.

A bigger budget than any of his films

had ever earned, unlike his rival.

But what the hell were you thinking?

Arnold was genuinely riding this horse.

In a project so ambitious...

I can get you two Marine Corps Harriers here in 11 minutes.

And Jim cat was like, "That costs $50,000

because they have to go refuel."

...and so risky...

I hung under a helicopter by a very thin wire.

...it put careers...

All right, twinkle toes, what's your exit strategy?

- Tom Arnold. - People booed.

...and lives on the line.

And that goes totally wrong.

The stuntman was completely destroyed.

So he almost lost his life.

It was a dangerous thing that we did.

Here's my invitation.

It was the mid-1980s, and Arnie,

owner of the most muscle-bound catchphrase in Hollywood...

I'll be back.

...was determined to live up to that pledge,

but not as an action hero.

As a hero of comedy.

No one knew Arnold as a comedian.

No one trusted Arnold as a comedian.

Well, there was someone

who saw a different kind of potential in Arnold

and he was trusted with comedy.

Ivan's comic instincts were exemplary,

and he knew where the jokes were.

Director Ivan Reitman had an exceptional record

when it came to comedy.

- Right. - Left.

From "Stripes" to "Ghostbusters."

Get her.

He's a really good comedy director.

I think he had a really good instinct.

Reitman saw something bulging from Arnold

that wasn't muscle.

Ivan knew that Arnold was the guy.

His comic potential.

At first it was the physical thing,

but Ivan knew that Arnold could deliver funny lines

and be funny.

Well, this was going

to be some kind of experiment.

Conducted by the American government.

And appropriately enough...

He had a script called "The Experiment."

"The Experiment" was a script

that reached Ivan via its British writers,

Will Osborne and Will Davies.

The director thought it had potential for Arnie.

Osborne and Davies came up with a really great premise.

You've got this perfect innocent

physical creature on an island.

You've got this small time, small town criminal.

- Oh no. - Oh no.

And they're actually twins

and they go on this journey together.

But the journey had no clear end. Not yet.

I got an idea we should go into business together.

Ivan had a problem.

He said, "I love this premise.

I want to do it with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito,

but it's not well enough executed."

Reitman came to experienced writers

Tim Harris and Herschel Weingrod with a question.

He said, "I only have one shot

at really getting these guys.

So what would you guys do so that I could get Schwarzenegger

and DeVito in this movie?"

We said, "Give us a shot."

And we did a couple of rewrites

and he sent it to those guys and they said, "Yeah."

But where Arnold and Danny and Ivan saw comedy,

the money men saw risk.

I mean, Arnold was the number one action star in the world,

and now you're asking him to play

this complete innocent goofball.

♪ Yakety yak Don't talk back ♪

Marnie.

Universal must have thought, kind of risky.

Catch you later.

Oops.

Why are we gonna pay 20, 30 million dollars

to do a film that's probably gonna tank?

But if this was about money then Arnold

and company thought of a way to take that out of the picture

to keep themselves in the picture, declaring...

"We'll work for scale."

So Arnold, Danny DeVito and Ivan Reitman got together

and said, "Let's all do this for our minimum scale."

At the time it was like $700 a day for an actor.

Okay? Which is nothing.

Nothing upfront, but Arnold and company

had a plan for something off the back.

"We'll work for scale

and a nice big fat piece of the profits if there are any,

and we think there will be."

Millions, Julius.

And the studio went "Great.

We can do a $30 million picture for 15 or 20 million.

Sure. Give them that money."

- 20 for my cut. - 20!

Let them burn it up and we'll just call this a loss.

The deal is five.

Five million.

The movie was greenlit by Universal.

"The Experiment" was underway.

The movie now called "Twins."

But the "Twins" writers developed a block.

We were getting stuck on the third act.

It just didn't seem to have what it needed.

You telling me that I am the leftover crap?

That I'm no good?

What it needed was a new approach.

A famous Irish novelist, he said, "Writing is a way

of turning your worst moments into money."

That got Tim thinking

about the film's search for dad mission.

In my own life, I hadn't seen my real father

for 15 years or something.

And when I was 21, I traveled

from England to America to find him.

So I knew something about looking for a lost parent.

What about their mom?

Hey. Dickhead.

- Tell us where our mother is. - Um...

They're gonna be much more invested in finding her

and that's gonna be a lot more of an emotional bang

than finding one of the fathers.

She's gonna be very happy to see us.

And suddenly the penny dropped.

Everybody said, "Yeah, that's it. Let's do that. "

Now Reitman had a workable script,

but to carry his film,

the director wanted another big name on the poster.

Towards the end, getting close to shooting...

Not a star, but a legend.

...He'd brought in William Goldman,

the famous multiple Oscar-winning screenwriter.

Celebrated writer

of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,"

"All the President's Men" and "Misery."

Reitman now had five writers working

on what would be Arnold's first comedy.

And puts us all in a room together

for a shark feeding frenzy.

And so every day he'd tell us which scenes

he wanted us to work on and we would go home,

write them up, put them in.

Give me the goddamn page.

It was quite intense.

I'd never worked in a room like that.

And when the frenzy was over.

It was basically unchanged

from what the previous draft was.

When principal photography on "Twins"

began in April of 1988, it soon became clear Arnold,

a feature-comedy virgin, playing a virgin,

was about to become a grown-up comedy star.

Being a virgin, losing his virginity,

one of the funniest moments.

He didn't feel he needed to win every scene.

He could be the butt of the scene.

We are not identical twins.

Oh, obviously.

The moment I sat down, I thought

I was looking into a mirror.

Because of his innocence and his gap tooth and his accent.

Well, I wouldn't be too sure, pal.

I don't lie.

He was this big guy

that could kick anybody's butt in the room.

But he's got an ax.

But was so sweet and intelligent about it.

I have no respect for those with no respect for logic.

What a doubting studio had failed to see

was that Arnold's most unique asset wasn't his muscles.

We are twins. I can feel your pain.

His accent is a huge plus.

You think it's gonna be a negative,

but it's just the opposite.

See, if you lift the rear end of a car

to an angle greater than 45 degrees,

the mercury switch activates the automatic cut-off system.

And Tim and Herschel

weren't going to miss a trick this good.

This is a great idea.

What we did was we would try to find

words which we knew he couldn't pronounce properly.

Oh, I like nuked food.

And those were some of the biggest laughs.

How can bullshit walk?

That's slang, huh?

Yeah.

That's why that scene on the plane when he's flying

to the States and he's listening to music.

♪ Take out the papers and the trash ♪

I said, "Let's use 'Yakety Yak.'"

♪ If you don't scrub that kitchen floor ♪

♪ You ain't gonna rock 'n' roll no more ♪

♪ Yakety yak don't talk back ♪

Because he's gonna mangle that stuff and that's funny.

Excuse me.

I was proud of it

and I thought it was gonna be very successful.

"Twins" was more than successful.

The humor landed.

The pavement was his enemy.

And Arnold's comedy career took off.

"Twins" made a ton of money around the world.

I'm so happy, Vincent.

It cost 15 and made 200 and something worldwide.

That's ridiculous.

Arnold to this day said it's the most money he's ever made

because of the backend.

I feel like sometimes like picking you up.

Whoa.

Love you.

Hug you, hug you, hug you.

The action star was now a comedy star.

That led to "Kindergarten Cop."

His next comedy, also with Reitman at the helm,

was another hit.

What's the matter?

I have a headache.

It might be a tumor.

It's not a tumor.

Stop it.

Grossing over $200 million

from a budget of 15 million.

Eventually Arnold would return to his action hero roots

with an attempt to inject comedy into the genre

that made him a star.

You want to be a farmer. Here's a couple of acres.

We were expecting number one at the box office

several weeks in a row,

like Arnold had had in the past.

But the "Last Action Hero"

had a big problem looking it right in the eye.

We came out the same day that "Jurassic Park" came out.

And it was such an insane success

that there was no movie that could have come close.

The film flopped

and suddenly the "Last Action Hero" looked like

the last action hero movie Schwarzenegger would do.

It was tough on Arnold.

All that positivity going better, better, better, better.

You just expected "Last Action Hero"

to be another step on the runway.

Instead, it went a step down.

To be or not to be.

Not to be.

Arnie needed a hit.

Now come on.

Since the first "Terminator" movie,

Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron's careers

had risen nearly side by side.

"Terminator 2" had solidified their creative partnership

and it was Arnold that Cameron would have to thank

for their next joint venture.

Well, actually, James can thank Arnold's brother-in-law.

"True Lies" came together

because of Arnold's brother-in-law.

Bobby Shriver had found a French version of this

where the husband was a secret agent

but also had some other demure job

and he was living two lives.

It was such a great idea. He took it to Arnold.

Arnold then took it to James Cameron who wrote the script.

And this tiny French film...

Called "La Totale!"

...needed to become a big hit for Cameron,

especially after "The Abyss" sunk into, well, the abyss.

And that other movie involving a sinking

that would one day make James Cameron unsinkable,

was still years away.

- God! - Hold on!

The director was putting it all

on his next picture,

meaning the production was going to be...

Extremely expensive.

So expensive, it was unbelievable.

My words over that weekend at home

was, "Do you believe this?"

First, we had talked about a small film.

Now we're talking about Harriers.

As in Harrier jets, which you can pick one up

for a cool 33 million.

Raise your hands now if you have any questions.

Are we gonna fly them?

Where are we gonna fly them? Who's gonna fly them?

How do you fly them?

That's a big prop.

If I break it, they can take it out of my pay.

This kind of hardware

wasn't the art department, it was the defense department.

When we first started, we weren't sure

that the military was gonna cooperate.

We needed the total corporation off the Pentagon

and also the United States Marines to use the Harrier jets.

Needing high-level clearance.

I think it was Arnold eventually

was the one who had the clout.

It took all of Arnie's clout

to convince military top brass.

Sorry.

With an argument Hollywood had heard before.

It would do for the Marines

what "Top Gun" did for the Navy.

You can be my wing man anytime.

You can be mine.

"True Lies" was looking more

like a military operation

than a film in scale and maybe risk.

I mean, he'd devised the whole thing with the planes.

That stuff cost a lot of money.

And by then Arnold cost a lot of money.

About 15 million in fact.

But James Cameron had money.

He had 20th Century Fox's money

after inking a half billion dollar deal

to make 12 pictures in the studio with a profit share.

So he'd be casting only the most expensive

movie stars in Hollywood, right?

- Oh, hi, Arnie. - Hey, Rosie.

To play Arnold's buddy,

Cameron found the only other Arnold whose profile

was almost as high as Schwarzenegger's.

Tom Arnold was known as Roseanne Barr's

husband at the time.

It was an interesting time in my life

because it was my last year of my marriage to Roseanne,

who was the name of the show that I worked on too.

Sitcom actor Tom Arnold could hardly keep

himself out of the headlines.

The tabloids are writing crazy stories

about us every week.

And like the rest of America,

James Cameron had noticed.

My agent called, John Burnham.

He's like, "Jim Cameron wants to meet you

for that part in 'True Lies.'"

And I was like, "That's bullshit."

There was no way I was getting this part in "True Lies."

But then I thought, I want to meet Jim Cameron.

I love everything he's done

and this will be my only opportunity.

So I go over to his office.

We chit-chatted. He's very nice guy.

And then he's like, "Okay, do the audition scene."

And I was like, "I gotta be honest, I didn't even read it."

And he's like, "What?"

I go, "Well, 'cause I know I'm not getting the part,

so it seems like it'll hurt less if I don't even try."

And he's like, "Oh, well, it's three pages.

Just read it to me."

And I read him this scene and he was like, "Huh?"

And then he goes, "Get Arnold down here."

And I didn't know there's a loft.

And Arnold Schwarzenegger is up in the loft.

So now he's walking down the stairs.

Jim Cameron said he cast me

because while we were watching Arnold walk down the stairs,

I said, "I can take him."

Oh yeah, that worked good.

Right up the old front gate.

From the first frame of seeing them on screen together,

you're like, "Okay, I get it."

Can you lean back a second?

Jamie Lee Curtis, a former scream queen,

was cast for her comedy prowess to play opposite Arnold.

She's the high point of the movie.

She carries the comedy of the movie.

I slept with him, and he said he'd knock off $100.

That's good thinking. Bye, honey.

Also cast for his comedy chops

was longtime Cameron collaborator--

That's him.

Bill Paxton was friends with Jim.

They started in the business together.

From a small role

in the first "Terminator" movie.

I think this guy's a couple cans short of a six-pack.

To "Aliens."

Ah!

We're on an express elevator to hell.

Paxton was both Cameron and Arnie adjacent.

Talk about a character actor.

I got a little dick. It's pathetic.

Who could also be leading man.

Helen, I want you to be my wife.

Get lost, dipshit.

Art Malik was cast as the villain.

Eliza Dushku as Arnold's character's daughter.

And as "True Lies'" femme fatale, Cameron cast this woman.

And I'm getting a lot of money.

I'm Tia Carrere and I play Juno Skinner in "True Lies."

Harry Renquist.

Juno Skinner.

Unlike Arnold, Tia was coming off a hot hit.

Well, I had just done "Wayne's World."

♪ Party time, excellent. ♪

Which was the biggest movie all over the world.

Where did you learn English?

College and the "Police Academy" movies.

Tia was able to bring the touch of evil

that Jim wanted into the role.

Thanks for everything, Harry.

It wasn't bad while it lasted.

"True Lies" was ready to shoot

and ready to make history,

even before a single frame of film had rolled.

For the time, it was a very, very expensive movie.

That was true when the film

was initially announced at 40 million.

This was one of their biggest films that they had made.

And even truer as costs ballooned.

Heading towards Fox's reported red line of 70 million.

Why is it so expensive?

Watch the movie, look at every single thing there

and realize--

There's a lot going on.

One way or another...

"True Lies" was set to do record-breaking numbers.

You know, it was the first $100 million movie ever.

Fox knew what they were into.

Fox was on the hook no matter what,

but getting this epic shot

was going to put people's lives on the line

and might yet sink a studio.

It's 1993 and as the cameras roll on "True Lies,"

the first lie...

is the film's true budget.

No, I didn't think it was

the most expensive film of all time.

That wasn't even part of the process.

But it was for James Cameron

to retain creative control.

He renegotiated his $500 million deal with Fox,

spreading it over three instead of five pictures.

That allowed him to spend even more on "True Lies".

That's okay.

Well, it's not okay. It's extortion.

A lot of pressure on Jim, you would think,

and the other actors.

What if I couldn't do it? What if I was terrible?

Tom was feeling the pressure from day one.

First thing we shot in "True Lies"

was a scene where Arnold and I walk into Omega Sector

and basically be naked.

Naked to get shots

for an x-ray scanner machine.

He's got like a gold G-string and nothing else.

Arnie was 46 years old

and still looked great in his underpants.

Very confident, smoking cigars with his buddies.

Tom could do the cigars, but not the G-string.

They did have different physiques.

And only one had the x-ray factor.

This is the worst. This is my worst nightmare.

But Tom made the right impression

with his director

as soon as he was allowed to let it all hang out.

Jim let me ad-lib. And he didn't let anybody ad-lib.

Boy, I remember the first time I got shot out of a cannon.

Tom and Arnold, there was a bit of improv.

And also between Bill and Arnold, of course,

there was improv there.

Ass like a 10-year-old boy.

There's a few of my ad-libs in the movie

that come from my real life.

Fortunately, Tom's domestic life

was a goldmine of inspiration.

Roseanne and I were getting divorced.

And she was messing with me.

So much so it was affecting Tom's diet.

Arnold and I eventually got on this great diet.

Whole fruit, whole vegetable, protein shake thing.

And it required a lot of ice cubes.

So I bought 40 ice cube trays.

And I come down in the morning, whip the freezer open

and there's no ice cube trays in there.

Evidently, the ice trays

were a casualty of the divorce.

And so I'm so mad, I come to work, I'm in makeup

with Arnold and Jim and I'm telling the story.

And I said, "What kind of a sick bitch

takes the ice cube trays out of the freezer?"

And Jim's like, "Say that in the next scene."

She even took the ice cube trays out of the freezer.

What kind of a sick bitch takes the ice cube

trays out of the freezer?

People, when they watch the movie, they say,

"Man, that scene, you're acting in that scene.

It seems so real, Tom."

And I'm like, "No, it was real.

It just happened to me."

Women.

Can't live with 'em. Can't kill 'em.

Who knows what really happened

to the ice cube trays.

But Tom would discover his soon-to-be ex-wife

would be ice cold.

Roseanne showed up with my assistant

and they had matching leather catsuits on.

It was weird and I was like,

"Maybe this is how it works in Hollywood."

Maybe, but it certainly

wasn't how James Cameron worked.

He doesn't give a shit.

It didn't even bother him. He's like, "Fuck off."

James Cameron ruled his set with authority.

I do remember that Jim had the voice of God

and was screaming the whole time.

That sticks out in my mind.

The pressure of a 100 million dollar

Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle was beginning to show.

The shoe dropping was, we were watching dailies.

I was sitting next to Jim and...

Director of photography, Russell Carpenter,

was about to learn about the difference

between light and dark.

A scene came up where he comes home

and he's gonna get into bed with Jamie Lee Curtis,

who's fast asleep.

And he looks into the mirror

and he can see her in the reflection.

And I think, "Oh Arnold's a little too dark.

What I'm going to do is I'm gonna ask the lab

just to print the scene up just a little bit."

And Jim is just, he's looking down at his knees.

He's shaking his head.

I said, "Jim, what's wrong?"

He says, "I've got the highest paid actor in this

or any parallel universe and I can't see his eyes.

Where'd you learn how to read a light meter?"

Russell wasn't the only department head

on the set whose judgment was being questioned.

It was actually the stunt coordinator

that said it's gonna be okay.

Stunt coordinator Joel Kramer

was about to come under the spotlight

after a major stunt in DC went horribly wrong.

Sorry.

It was a dangerous thing that we did.

And unfortunately, the stuntman paid for it.

The chase sequence

involving Arnold on horseback.

Okay, let's make it quick

because my horse is getting tired.

Your horse?

And Art Malik's character on a motorcycle

presented a unique challenge.

Of course, we had a double for Arnold.

Arnold's an excellent horseback rider,

but when it comes to galloping a horse

down pavement and asphalt, jumping over things and such,

you don't want to take a chance.

The issue with the horse was we shot the horse

running through a park in Washington DC

and the sidewalks were like slate and they wet them down.

There's one point where the horse

has to run and jump over some hedges.

And I thought, this just seems dangerous.

Being a horse person, I knew that it wasn't really okay.

This guy jumps over the fence, the horse slipped.

The guy goes face forward into the asphalt, busted up.

He was okay after that. Yeah.

It was quite a while, but then he was okay. Yeah.

As production moved to Florida,

a sense of danger was never far from the crew's mind.

Cameron's film was hanging by a thread, by design.

You had our actress, Eliza Dushku, Art Malik up there

and their doubles and then you had the jet here.

That was all suspended from the crane.

And so we put steel railing around it and stuff

so that we could turn it into the rooftop set

and that's where Eliza Dushku runs up

and gets onto the Harrier.

Please don't come any closer.

And by, "onto the Harrier"--

It was a crane operator took the jet up.

It was supposed to land on the street

and then Eliza is on the nose of the jet with Arnold.

As long as his actors were in position,

Cameron wasn't going to miss a trick instructing his crew.

"Take it up to the top of the telephone pole."

I'm like, "Ah, wait a minute."

You got Arnold and a girl for real on the nose of this jet.

On the set of "True Lies,"

James Cameron was putting it all on the line.

Eliza is on the nose of the jet.

Hold on. Hold on.

The guy kept going, 50 feet way up.

With Arnie himself in the cockpit

of a real fighter jet, this crazy amusement park ride

had an admission price of about 48 million.

And he just drops it down.

Mm, not including damages.

Hits the ground and rolls and hits a police car.

I just realized and went, "Wait.

They just wrecked this police car."

And I looked at this cop and I went,

"You know, that was an accident."

He goes, "Ah, it's cool."

The military's job on "True Lies"

wasn't limited to operating the Harriers.

They also helped build things.

We had to hire the Army Corps of Engineers to come in.

For James Cameron to destroy.

And they built us a 90-foot section of bridge.

Using an old abandoned causeway as a set,

James Cameron had an idea to help the state of Florida

by offering his services.

There was an original roadway.

Then they built a new one.

Well, the old one was still there.

His demolition services.

Look, there's a spot on the seven-mile bridge

that's missing a 240-foot section.

You could bridge that gap

and then you could blow that section up.

They blew up the actual bridge

and then I heard Jim Cameron go, "Fuck! Fuck!

Rebuild the bridge."

It didn't look right.

I guess we're waiting for another three or four days.

These missiles won't set off those nukes, will they?

That's a negative Flight 01.

Of course, there's nothing more realistic

than a good actor's performance.

They're going 50 miles an hour.

They're going 50 miles an hour. The car is doing this.

When it came to this part of the scene.

Oh God! The bridge is out!

Where the limo finds the gap

in the exploded bridge.

And the car falls away.

This multimillion dollar stunt came together

thanks to another household item.

You can see a broomstick, by the way.

The front of the limo had a broomstick

because the helicopter guy, because he's right over the car,

he couldn't quite see the car to know

when it was gonna go over

because he would have to lift up.

So they taped a broomstick on the front of the car

so you can see the broomstick fly off

when the car goes over.

Jim had his military jets,

his exploding infrastructure,

not to mention stunt performers.

That's all practical. All that was practical.

But there had to be some work

for this recently formed visual effects house,

Digital Domain.

The only miniature we did was for the bridge blowing up

and the trucks being exploded by the missiles.

I'm a little disappointed

to hear the missiles weren't real.

This is an actual prop, an actual use model part.

We scan this and use it for the flying off the wing

and flying into the bridge, motion control and do the path.

It might have been toy-sized,

but the miniature sequence still reportedly cost

between two and three million to pull off.

But this is the real thing. This is it.

Following the chaos on the Keys,

the production moved to LA

and by now the set wasn't the only thing exploding.

I was aware that it was over budget and over scheduled

just because I was there on set

when they were shooting the huge warehouse

exploding, gasoline tanks, fire.

Each big bang was burning a hole in the budget

and "True Lies" soon blew past the $70 million mark

well into record-setting territory.

I married Rambo.

When the gas tanker that Art Malik shoots

the bazooka and blows up.

And adding extra risk

to an already risky shoot.

When this thing blows

and it's everything goes flying into the air.

Everything but the kitchen sink

or in this case, something like a fridge.

We're looking at this piece

about as big as a small refrigerator.

And this thing's 150 pounds steel.

And it lands right in front of us.

Thud.

Damn.

No one was more at risk in this man-made

firestorm than Arnold's fearless stunt double.

Peter Kent dives into the water at that point.

He had a hard time in that movie.

You know, there's a big shot of the containers,

they're flying around in the air

and that goes totally wrong.

So he almost lost his life.

Yes.

Not for the first time

safety on set was being challenged.

The spotlight again was on stunt coordinator Joel Kramer.

I had serious doubts about his safety measures.

We had a lot of guys on fire,

and I know that a lot of those guys got hurt.

I think that he was not up to the task

to be honest with you.

And he was pals with Jim.

If I ever do a biography of my life with James Cameron,

it'll be, "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger."

That expression would ring true again

before "True Lies" wrapped.

- Sorry. - By Arnie.

Enabled by his historic budget,

"True Lies" wasn't lacking for action.

You're fired.

By the time they got to shooting

the snowy opening in Rhode Island,

Cameron had found the limit.

Running down between the trees

and having all these guys with the skis follow me,

this James Bondian type of a scene.

It's snowmobiles and all that.

I mean, I wiped out left and right.

Every time I turned around and tried to fire,

I smacked against a tree

or I just slipped and fell on my face.

It's very challenging to do that.

Intended...

Proper time for this is our wedding night.

...as an homage to James Bond blockbusters...

There was a much bigger sequence planned there.

...Cameron realized he had reached peak action.

The sequence was he's skiing down the hill at night

and a guy was gonna chase him on a helicopter.

So the helicopter is low and goes between two trees

and shears off the blades.

Helicopter's gonna land and slide to a little precipice.

And so Arnold's gonna run up, grab the guy,

pull him out of the helicopter, tip the helicopter over,

jump in and then ski the helicopter down the mountain.

Which might have seen Arnold eclipse even Bond.

- But-- - At some point

during the shoot, he realized that he probably had

the heart of the sequence that he needed and said,

"Okay, we've got enough action here. Let's go."

Let's go.

Now that he had almost everything he needed,

nothing was going to stop James Cameron

bringing the most expensive film ever made in on time.

Not even an act of God.

We were filming "True Lies" in the San Fernando Valley

in Los Angeles during the '94 earthquake.

It was a major quake.

Huge earthquake.

The earthquake had buckled

large sections of the freeway.

"True Lies" production team

found themselves right in the midst of chaos.

Which was three miles from the epicenter

of the earthquake.

I could hear the beams cracking above my head

and I started to get out of the bed

and the floor was rolling. Like, it was crazy.

It was crazy, but this was Hollywood.

And the show must go on.

We have to go to work.

You know, we're gonna be working today.

At least according to James Cameron.

It's a little excitement in an otherwise dull day.

World War III? I gotta go to work.

There was no questioning

the commitment of the cast and crew.

Jamie Lee Curtis made it to the set.

I barely got there.

I swear to God, she made it, which is madness.

But there was no shooting on day one

of a natural disaster.

About half the crew showed up.

We all stood around for a while and they said, "Go home."

Their aftershocks went on for weeks.

Cameron's production had to adapt

to this new reality and well, roll with it.

The earth was shaking.

And Cameron's like, "Sorry, I got to cut.

I can't keep focus."

It was all me, because they're tied up in the chair.

So I had to go around, command the room.

All right everyone, this is some meeting.

Harry, what's going on?

It's just shaking too much.

I mean, I can't, nothing I can do.

And that was one of those things

where I thought, "Here it is.

This is what you're getting paid for.

You bring your A game no matter what is going on around you.

You keep your focus."

And that's the stuff they used in the movie.

We didn't get to do it again. We didn't get to re-shoot it.

Jamie Lee Curtis was bringing her A game

to a performance within a performance.

She would end up with red lipstick and wet slicked hair.

It was a striptease sequence

she made sure everyone was prepared for.

We all decide to meet in James Cameron's office,

the hairdresser, Tanya, who's gonna be doing her makeup,

our DP, and James Cameron.

And she has to do the nude scene.

She goes, "All right, folks.

I want you all to see what we're dealing with here.

So we know."

She takes all of her clothing off except a G-string.

I just wanted to do something outrageous.

Now Jamie Lee Curtis is standing

completely naked in front of us.

And we're all going, "Hmm. Okay. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

We're gonna check that off the list."

And she literally is standing there turning around,

"This is what we have folks.

Good, bad, or ugly. This is it."

My name is Michelle.

Carla thought you'd like me.

Well, it's never easy for you to shoot

anytime you're exposing yourself in a vulnerable way,

in a physical way to a group of people.

Jamie Lee's striptease scene

which they shot in Santa Clarita.

It was written sexy, but it was better than that

because she's so physically talented, gifted performer.

She trips, she falls. And that was not in the script.

And you can see Arnold start to get up

like a human being would.

That's the kind of stuff she thought of.

I mean, Jamie Lee is such a great comic actress.

I think somebody dropped a camera lens

when I licked the bedpost.

They were not expecting that.

She did that dance so many times

and, you know, over and over and over again.

On the home stretch of production,

cast and crew were not out of the woods yet.

The same scene that had already put one man in the hospital

now had to be completed in LA.

That started in Washington DC

and it ended up the hotel here in LA, the Ambassador Hotel.

Riding the horse through the hotel.

Safety was again in question.

But this time they weren't going to risk

losing another stunt performer.

Sorry.

They were putting Arnold in the saddle.

I got two words to describe that idea. Insane.

Sorry.

A lot of stuff, of what I saw, Arnold on the horse

in the theater...

And action, Arnold.

...I'm like, yeah, that must be the stunt guy, Peter Kent.

You cannot tell because Arnold

was genuinely riding this horse.

Would you press the button for the top floor, please.

The horse in the elevator

was a little nerve-wracking for me.

I can't lie.

On the set of the most expensive movie

ever filmed, now north of 115 million and rising,

one of Hollywood's most expensive actors

was putting himself on the line.

Excuse me.

I had to jump into the fountain, we had to use a jumper.

When I rode through the park, it was a quarter horse.

It was different horses that we used in the film.

So I practiced with all of them.

I got them comfortable with me

and I made myself comfortable with them.

Look at me when I talk to you.

What kind of a cop are you anyway?

It was a lot of fun, but you know, dangerous.

When it came to a horse catching a lift,

the risk profile changed.

Would you press the button for the top floor, please.

The horse wrangler was great and they did a great job

and the horse did fine in the elevator.

I think it was only like it went up a floor.

It was a real horse in a real elevator.

The two people that are in suits and a gown.

With real people.

Those were the horse trainers.

Fine animal.

- But not for long. - Ooh.

So it started with a horse,

but the horse weighed way too much

to go up pretty high in the elevator.

So there's a puppet horse

with a movable head that Arnold sits on

that goes up and down the elevator.

Principal photography on "True Lies"

wrapped in March of 1994.

Now, when a movie gets done, they test screen it.

When "True Lies" was screened

for a test audience ahead of its official summer release--

The first test screening,

we're in a theater and it comes up.

"True Lies", a James Cameron movie.

There he is.

People are like, "Yeah."

The immediate reaction to Arnold was a concern.

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Honey, I'm home.

Yell, yell.

- Not that Arnold. - Tom Arnold.

Right on time.

People booed.

All right, reality check.

And the guy behind me goes, "Oh no, Tom Arnold."

And I turn around and I go, "Let's talk at the end of this.

Let me see what your opinion is.

You're gonna change it."

But at the end of that, when people filled out the cards

about what character they liked the best, it was mine.

You're outgunned, Daddy O.

Sure as hell at the end, he goes,

"Hey buddy, he was really good in that. He was really good."

Care to tango.

Yes, I would.

Arnold himself also defied expectations.

Assholes.

Arnold came off as a stronger character,

a better actor, quite funny

and quite handsome in that movie.

What can I say?

I was over the moon.

I thought, "Wow, I'm a big grownup woman."

The most expensive movie ever

certainly made its stars look good,

but could James Cameron's extravagant movie

justify its tremendous cost?

It still holds up today,

so we must have done something right.

"True Lies" went on to gross nearly 380 million

from what was reportedly a final price tag of $115 million.

Cameron shattered budgets twice more

and gave Fox the two biggest movies in history.

But not everyone walked away happy.

In 2017, Eliza Dushku leveled serious allegations

against stunt coordinator Joel Kramer.

Eliza Dushku, who was 12, has publicly said,

you know, he was inappropriate with her.

Her co-cast, including Arnold Schwarzenegger,

came out in support of her.

And we all support her.

In just over 25 years,

Arnie had gone from immigrant...

Ah.

...to immortal.

Get out.

From a small Austrian town.

He worked hard and made all these super smart moves

to ascend the ranks of super stardom.

As a performer, his legendary drive...

Nothing intimidates him.

He has a great work ethic.

...had enabled a transformation as spectacular

as anything he achieved with his physique.

And he's achieved every dream he's ever had.

He is the most positive person in the world.

From action,

and action comedy...

How about a light?

...to full-throated comedy.

Shut up.

Shut up!

There's something really transcendent about Arnold.

Really great actor, but a really good human being also.

He made each genre his own.

You would enjoy watching Arnold Schwarzenegger

because he's always so entertaining.

He became one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood.

He was the biggest star in the world.

And his talents

would drive him farther than most.

Then he became governor. That's a pretty smart guy.

Arnold is...

...the man.

I totally understand if you never want to see me again.

In the end, Arnold always stayed true

to his often stated goal.

I'll be back.

I'll be back.

I'll be back.

I'll be back.

I'll be back.

World famous, Governor of California,

superstar, billionaire.

He embodies the American dream.

That's why I love Arnold.