Arnold Schwarzenegger fought with James Cameron over famous Terminator line: ‘Don’t tell me how to write’

Oct 26, 2023

The most famous line in The Terminator (1984) would have been lost if it weren't for a stubborn James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals in his new Netflix documentary.

In Arnold, the streamer's newly-released docuseries about the Austrian actor, Schwarzenegger reveals he fought back against the classic line: "I’ll be back."

"Sometime in the middle of the shoot, we’re doing this police station scene. The line is, ‘I’ll come back.’ It wasn't meant to be like a big moment at all," Cameron, who co-wrote The Terminator with Gale Anne Hurd, said in the documentary.

"It was literally meant to be, on its face, ‘No problem, I’ll come back.’ For some reason, Arnold didn't say, ‘I’ll come back.’ I said, ‘Well, just say "I’ll be back." Keep it simple.’"

Schwarzenegger says he wanted to change the line to "I will be back" to sound more "machine-like".

Luckily for him, and the movie, Cameron wasn't having any of it. "He says, ‘Are you the writer?’" Schwarzenegger remembers. "And I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Well, don't tell me how to f***ing write.’"

The 75-year-old admits that the Avatar director was "absolutely right". "It became the most quoted movie line, I think, in the history of motion pictures. So this just shows to you who was right and who was wrong," he said.

Elsewhere in the new series, the former California governor addresses his 2003 groping scandal and opens up about his abusive father who served in the Nazi party.

Schwarzenegger suggested that his father's cruelty was behind his brother's death aged 24. His older brother, Meinhard, died in a drunk driving accident after hitting a telephone pole.

Arnold is out now on Netflix.