Arnold Schwarzenegger's Road to Hollywood Stardom: Working with Coaches and Embracing His Accent
From Accent Removal Lessons to Terminator's Robotic Voice, Schwarzenegger's Journey to Hollywood Success
As part of his preparation for his Hollywood debut, Arnold Schwarzenegger claims he worked with several coaches, one of whom was tasked with helping the Austrian-born actor shed his accent.
Unfortunately, because of his accent, Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to land a role in "Terminator" because director James Cameron felt he sounded like a robot, according to entertainment website IndieWire report. Schwarzenegger discussed the start of his American acting career while making an appearance on "The Graham Norton Show."
"I had an English coach, and an acting coach, and a speech coach, and an accent-removal coach — who has passed away since then, but I mean, I should have otherwise gotten my money back," Schwarzenegger stated to Norton.
The former governor of California claimed he would spend hours practicing American pronunciation of words like "three" and "wine," which have a distinct sound in German, Austria's official language, with the coach.
"You know you always say'sree,'" he would say, in my memory. Three with a "T-H" is what it is. Thus, he instructed me to pronounce "Three Thousand Three Hundred and Thirty-Three and One-Third," using the "T-H" sound rather than the "S." "We would comment on how lovely this vine is. However, isn't it essentially "wine"? "A fine wine grows on vine," the guy made me say. That was what I was saying over and over. Although very helpful, it did not eliminate my accent. Although he was unable to successfully alienate Americans, Schwarzenegger did succeed in becoming a successful action star, thanks to his roles in 1982's "Conan the Barbarian" and 1984's "The Terminator," in which he used his accent to great effect as the antagonist cyborg killer.
"James Cameron told me after I finished 'Terminator' that Arnold Schwarzenegger's robotic voice is what made the movie work and why it became successful." As Schwarzenegger remembered.
The actor most recently starred in the documentary series "Arnold" and the Netflix series "FUBAR."
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