If there is a movie that exemplifies Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Hollywood career, it is his role as T-800 in The Terminator franchise. But despite its immense success, there's a rumor that says Schwarzenegger was banned from dubbing the movie in German.

The Terminator had a global box office collection of $78.3 million. That number also included the movie's earnings from Germany, with German dubbing. But despite being well-versed in the German language, Schwarzenegger did not get the chance to dub for the movie's German release, and the role was given to Thomas Danneberg.

Well, the rumored reason behind this decision was that the creative team thought Schwarzenegger's voice would be treated as rural, like a farmer, by the German audience.

However, in a May 27 article by AV Club, a completely different version of the story is discussed.

According to the article, there is no production note, no statement, no memoir, and no interview from the production or from Schwarzenegger that can confirm the aforementioned reason for his rejection from dubbing the movie in German.

It also traces the news, or the rumor, to an episode of QI, a British panel show released in 2009, where Hugh Dennis casually highlighted the event. From the comedian's mouth, the story spread through IMDb, Reddit, and some other news articles.

The article also claimed that a similar story was found for Michael Biehn, an actor, and that this raised the chance that the 2 stories could be mixed.

Although the story of Schwarzenegger being banned from dubbing remains a question mark, the director of the movie once revealed that he was sure about casting the Austrian Oak for this role.

The director of the Terminator was hesitant to cast Arnold Schwarzenegger

According to CBR, Orion Pictures first considered Schwarzenegger for the role of Kyle Reese in The Terminator. However, the bodybuilding legend refused to do so.

Even director James Cameron once told Empire that he was not confident before signing Schwarzenegger.

He said, “We had talked briefly about the idea about six months before [they met Schwarzenegger], myself and [producer and co-writer] Gale [Anne Hurd], and we thought, man, maybe not. It didn't fit our vision. [Arnold's] not going to be able to disappear into a crowd. He's going to be Arnold."

Cameron continued, "It's not going to work, right? So we discounted it, and I went in [to the lunch] with a mindset of just ticking the box. I'm going to tick the box and come back and report that it doesn't work.”

However, Schwarzenegger dropped hints that he was only interested in the main role by talking about all the scenes he loved in the Terminator-related scenes.

Cameron added, “And I keep trying to bring it back around to Reese, and Reese's character, and I want to hear Arnold's take on Reese. Arnold's not talking about Reese.

I didn't want Arnold in the movie. I didn't want him to play Reese. It didn't make any sense. This was coming from on high at Orion that Arnold should play Reese. It was just a stupid idea.”

However, destiny chose its own path, and Schwarzenegger not only got this role but also created history with this movie.

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Written by

Supradeep Dutta

Edited by

Souvik Roy