Arnold Schwarzenegger: Taking the gamble on twins | Trending Now

Arnold Schwarzenegger recounts when he bet on himself and starred in the comedy “Twins” without taking a salary, to shed his typecast as an action star.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hey everybody, it's Graham and it's Friday, which means today
we get to bring you another trending clip.
The clip you're about to hear istrending on our Instagram right
now. Hope you enjoy this week Arnold
Schwarzenegger with the movie Twins and obviously this turned

(00:21):
out to be an amazing decision, but what led you at the time to
deciding to take no salary? Well, you have to understand, I
was so convinced that I would begreat in a comedy, but I also
understood the dilemma that the studios were in because the
studios saw me every time I did a movie.

(00:44):
The movies make huge money, so it was natural to offer me
another action movie to play safe.
Let's get another action movie for Schwarzenegger.
The last one did great. Let's take, let's take him this
time to the jungle. Let's take him to Russia.
Let's take him there and let's take him there.
And it was like that, you know? So it was all working for that.

(01:06):
Let's have him be a machine. So it was like, whatever it was,
let's be an action movie and he would do well.
And you were hypersensitive about being typecast.
What it wasn't hypersensitive, Iwas just, I said to myself, I
understand that this is what theaudience wants me to do.
Me to go out and to kick ass andto be the guy that is, you know,

(01:29):
wiping out evil and all the bad people and all this stuff and
that I protect everyone else andthen the good guy and all this
kind of stuff. So I understood that.
So I felt like that the only waythat we maybe can go beyond that
and make a studio feel at all comfortable is just by me just
saying, hey, you don't have to be the only one that is

(01:52):
investing in me. I invest in myself too.
Don't give me any money, nothing.
Just pay for the production and does it that you know, and so
that's what I basically said to Ivan Reitman.
And when Ivan Reitman and I had,you know, dinner in Aspen and
Snowmass with Robin Williams andthat's where he actually Ivan

(02:16):
Reitman, the director of Ghostbusters said, do you have
funny? And there's so many things about
you that I've never seen in a movie since I would like to see
that in a movie. And I said, Ivan, why don't you
go and come up with a project for us?
I said, you've just done Ghostbusters.
I said, I would love to do to bedirected by you in a comedy.

(02:38):
I said, but no one wants wants to do a comedy with me because
I'm the action star. And he says, OK, let me come up
with something. And he said he came up with five
ideas. And we picked out of those five
ideas the idea of the experiment, which then was
changed to twins. And you know, and so I

(02:59):
understood that that the students shouldn't be the one
responsible for taking the risk.So we, we were able to then make
the deal very easily because Danny Devita decided not to take
a salary, Ivan Reitman decided not to take a salary, and I
decided not to take one. But did we take a big chunk of
the back end? And of course, there was the
best investment we have ever made.

(03:20):
Every one of us says that because the student never, ever
it became such a historic deal that the studio would never,
ever make that deal again, no matter who it is.
No, absolutely not. Because.
They just. Got a?
Percentage. Of profit, they, they, we, we
got the bigger chunk and that does not float well with the

(03:41):
studio. Let me tell you as a matter of
fact that I remember that whoever the studio executive was
then after the movie came out and after we made all the money,
he says, you know what you guys did to me?
And he turned around and he pulled out his pockets and he
says, you know, you robbed me blind and you me, you know, and

(04:02):
he bend over like that. And so that's that's exactly
insane. So, you know, it was like I
said, the historic deal, but for16 and a half million dollars,
that's what the budget was of the movie because we do no
salary. Otherwise, it would have been
$50 million, you know, because Ivan was getting a huge salary,
Danny was, I was getting a huge salary at that point.

(04:24):
So we just, you know, didn't take any because there was a
very low budget for this kind ofa movie and it made I think
worldwide 260, two, $170 million.
So I mean, it was a huge, huge winner.
And that's this week's fan favorite.
To see more popular videos, go to

(04:45):
[e-mail]/grahamBensinger.