by Paul Fischer
by
Paul Fischer Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold
Schwarzenegger is looking very fit and tanned these days. In a busy break from
shooting his latest movie, Arnold was eagerly promoting its predecessor, The
6th Day, a sci-fi thriller. Sporting a neatly trimmed light brown beard, the
fit action star remains obsessed with physical education, and still practices
what he preaches. "I work out at least twice a day. I do it in the morning when
I get up, riding the stationary bicycle in my room, continue during lunch or a
break, and then work-out for half-an-hour or forty-five minutes with the weights",
the actor explains. He looks as fit as ever, lean and brawn, not bad for a man
of 53 who was recently hospitalised for a heart bypass operation. "I've never
been better," and it shows. Since the operation, the Austrian ex-Mr Universe has
donned his movie muscles, first in the darkly devilish End of Days, and
now in another thriller, The Sixth Day.
In this timely thriller, British director Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) creates a world of the very near future in which cattle, fish and even the family pet can be cloned. But cloning humans is illegal-until family man Adam Gibson (Schwarzenegger) comes home from work one day to find a clone has replaced him. Taken from his family and plunged into a sinister world he doesn't understand, Gibson must not only save himself from the assassins who must now destroy him to protect their secret, but uncover who and what is behind the horrible things happening to him. For the action star, The 6th Day seems something of a departure. "I always look for something different, besides the story and action, as well as something that is timely." In the case of this film, the actor thought a script regarding cloning fitted his criteria. "I said: Gee, on every cover you see today you read about gene therapy, gene manipulation and cloning. Will it ever be allowed? What's happening with animal cloning? There are recently formed companies that actually officially clone animals and pets. As a matter of fact, they came to me for investing in them so I know about this first hand", Schwarzenegger explains enthusiastically. "When you do research for a movie like this, you become exposed to a lot of things that are going on that you normally wouldn't know. I felt that this movie was appropriate with its subject matter, but taking it a step further as is always the case in movies. Suddenly, this guy comes home to his family, but it's not him, but a clone."
While
for many, the idea of cloning humans seems reprehensible, Schwarzenegger has other
thoughts on the subject. "I just think cloning is terrific. I love the whole
idea of animal cloning, in that if you have an eagle, a certain fish, a whale
or even some kind of tiger that is extinct, you can clone that animal, multiply
it by the thousands and not have to worry whether they would have died."
He also approves of human cloning "as long as you make sure that it's not
going to be used by someone to create his own little army and abuse the thing."
Of course, for Arnold, cloning would mean duplicating himself, and that's an idea
he loves, "because I want to do so many things in life. It is not just I.
You are probably the same. You say to yourself, "Gee, how can I have my family
and work? At night, I wonder how I can go to sleep plus direct a movie while in
the daytime act in two movies simultaneously, go home and be with the family.
Wouldn't that be wild?" Schwarzenegger says boyishly. "Then all my clones
could get together and have a meeting, go out again and attack." This philosophy
is at odds with the character he plays in 6th Day, however, an interesting
dichotomy to be sure. "I actually play someone who is very religious and
very much against it. He's very old-fashioned, even uses traditional razors and
doesn't even want to go and get another animal when his house pet dies. He simply
doesn't believe in cloning and thinks that only God has the right to create a
human being."
Although
6th Day is not an action thriller on the same level as many of Schwarzenegger's
earlier films, he is still defined as one of the major action stars of his generation,
and on this film, there's enough running around to tire younger men. For Arnold,
the idea of giving up the action game for younger folk is something he won't consider.
"I don't think it's really up to me to pass on the torch, as it were, because
it's not like you're running a company, where you say: Okay, I'm fifty-years-old
now and so I' m going to pass the torch down to a younger generation or to my
son. In our business you don't make any such decision. The audiences do,
and so if they feel like I'm slowing down, they will let me know. He feels as
active as ever. "I run as fast, have the energy to stay up all night, jump
on the aeroplane and do the stunts that need to be done, so I don't feel like
I'm slowing down; I still enjoy doing these kinds of movies." What it doesn't
mean is that Arnold won't try anything new. After all, the movies and the action
genre are more sophisticated than in his Terminator days. "People don't like
just a simple action movie. They like to have more in a movie, more substance
than ever before", the actor says. "Those baby boomers that used to
like it, have become more sophisticated," mainly due to the demise of the
woman's movement that was at its peak during the eighties. "I think that
the whole woman's liberation thing is history. That was a time when guys somehow
felt powerless and so would run into those action movies to feel as if they should
live out some kind of fantasy: The guy is still in charge and he can take care
of the job. That's what made those movies really big in the '80s and early
'90s, but now that has straightened out," Schwarzenegger says. "Men
and women have begun to realise that women are equal to men and they are. There's
no longer this need of running to the gym to build their bodies, to make themselves
look like heroes, or that need of seeing all these mindless action movies (some
of which I did myself)".
Yet those "mindless action movies" turned Schwarzenegger into a star and icon. Looking at him today, it is hard to believe that it is some 20 years since Arnold became a star with the first Conan. Audiences have changed, the action genre is being reinvented and movie making has taken off in leaps and bounds. For Arnold, it's been an interesting process, one that continues through his work in his latest movie. The scene he is currently shooting, is being filmed on a massive soundstage. A giant helicopter is positioned outside a blue screen. The end result is seamless cinema. "All of this technology has happened so slowly over the last twenty years that we are not as amazed because I see it in front of my eyes, the way we use computers, how they match things together and how I see it replayed today immediately as if I'm out there in a canyon flying; is staggering."
In Part II: More on his movies, bodybuilding, politics, violence and other good stuff >>>
Copyright ©2000 Paul Fischer
