Highlights - ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Athlete, Actor, American, Activist - Conversation with Editor DIAN HANSON
08/08/23 • 10 min
"Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito and director Ivan Reitman, who also wrote the film, were willing to work for free and just take a percentage of the profits. They were able to get the film made. They had to fight with the studios to produce that film. And the only way that the studio agreed to produce Twins was when they said, 'We will not take any salary. We will do this movie for free. We will just take a little percentage of the profits.' And the studio thought, Okay, it's going to be a very cheap film to make. No special effects. No stunt people. It's going to be very cheap and easy. These guys, these idiots are going to do it for free.
And everyone involved has made more money off that film than any other film. Arnold, actually, for all the high, high prices that he got for his late Terminator films, he still has made more money off Twins because of taking a percentage."
"And when you see him in the movies, he's famous for these very short one-liners that make it seem as if he is nonverbal, that he's not particularly intelligent. You don't get his humor. The first time I went to Arnold's house, I saw that this man is the greatest storyteller, the greatest entertainer ever.
He is funny, he is witty, he is quick. He can tell a story like no one else, and not just tell it, he would act it out. He would get up and stomp around and make noises with his mouth. He told me a simple story about a woman in the gym who was not working out, who was just sitting on a bench and talking on the phone to her friend and eating a bag of potato chips. And he was able to replicate the sound of eating potato chips just with his mouth. He is underappreciated."
“Why I was different from all the other boys in my town I cannot tell you. I was simply born with the gift of vision.” – ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
Is there any better example of the American Dream than Arnold Schwarzenegger? What does it take to make your vision a reality? How do you cultivate iron focus to overcome any obstacle and realize your dreams?
On the publication of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s limited edition two-volume book published by TASCHEN, we sat down with Senior Editor and Writer Dian Hansen to discuss Schwarzenegger’s life, accomplishments, and history of unforgettable performances. The book has been a decade-long collaborative process and along with portraits by leading photographers Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Francesco Scavullo, and Andy Warhol, it is also filled with photos from Arnold’s private archive and exclusive interviews. Dian’s other works include The Art of Pin-up, Masterpieces of Fantasy Art, and The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta.
www.taschen.com/en/limited-editions/film/03105/arnold-collector-s-edition
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Image courtesy of Taschen.
Photo credit: ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER IN VENICE, CALIFORNIA. PHOTO BY ALBERT BUSEK, 1980
"Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito and director Ivan Reitman, who also wrote the film, were willing to work for free and just take a percentage of the profits. They were able to get the film made. They had to fight with the studios to produce that film. And the only way that the studio agreed to produce Twins was when they said, 'We will not take any salary. We will do this movie for free. We will just take a little percentage of the profits.' And the studio thought, Okay, it's going to be a very cheap film to make. No special effects. No stunt people. It's going to be very cheap and easy. These guys, these idiots are going to do it for free.
And everyone involved has made more money off that film than any other film. Arnold, actually, for all the high, high prices that he got for his late Terminator films, he still has made more money off Twins because of taking a percentage."
"And when you see him in the movies, he's famous for these very short one-liners that make it seem as if he is nonverbal, that he's not particularly intelligent. You don't get his humor. The first time I went to Arnold's house, I saw that this man is the greatest storyteller, the greatest entertainer ever.
He is funny, he is witty, he is quick. He can tell a story like no one else, and not just tell it, he would act it out. He would get up and stomp around and make noises with his mouth. He told me a simple story about a woman in the gym who was not working out, who was just sitting on a bench and talking on the phone to her friend and eating a bag of potato chips. And he was able to replicate the sound of eating potato chips just with his mouth. He is underappreciated."
“Why I was different from all the other boys in my town I cannot tell you. I was simply born with the gift of vision.” – ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
Is there any better example of the American Dream than Arnold Schwarzenegger? What does it take to make your vision a reality? How do you cultivate iron focus to overcome any obstacle and realize your dreams?
On the publication of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s limited edition two-volume book published by TASCHEN, we sat down with Senior Editor and Writer Dian Hansen to discuss Schwarzenegger’s life, accomplishments, and history of unforgettable performances. The book has been a decade-long collaborative process and along with portraits by leading photographers Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Francesco Scavullo, and Andy Warhol, it is also filled with photos from Arnold’s private archive and exclusive interviews. Dian’s other works include The Art of Pin-up, Masterpieces of Fantasy Art, and The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta.
www.taschen.com/en/limited-editions/film/03105/arnold-collector-s-edition
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Image courtesy of Taschen.
Photo credit: ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER IN VENICE, CALIFORNIA. PHOTO BY ALBERT BUSEK, 1980
Previous Episode
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Athlete, Actor, American, Activist - Conversation with Editor DIAN HANSON
“Why I was different from all the other boys in my town I cannot tell you. I was simply born with the gift of vision.” – ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
Is there any better example of the American Dream than Arnold Schwarzenegger? What does it take to make your vision a reality? How do you cultivate iron focus to overcome any obstacle and realize your dreams?
On the publication of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s limited edition two-volume book published by TASCHEN, we sat down with Senior Editor and Writer Dian Hansen to discuss Schwarzenegger’s life, accomplishments, and history of unforgettable performances. The book has been a decade-long collaborative process and along with portraits by leading photographers Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Francesco Scavullo, and Andy Warhol, it is also filled with photos from Arnold’s private archive and exclusive interviews. Dian’s other works include The Art of Pin-up, Masterpieces of Fantasy Art, and The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta.
"Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito and director Ivan Reitman, who also wrote the film, were willing to work for free and just take a percentage of the profits. They were able to get the film made. They had to fight with the studios to produce that film. And the only way that the studio agreed to produce Twins was when they said, 'We will not take any salary. We will do this movie for free. We will just take a little percentage of the profits.' And the studio thought, Okay, it's going to be a very cheap film to make. No special effects. No stunt people. It's going to be very cheap and easy. These guys, these idiots are going to do it for free.
And everyone involved has made more money off that film than any other film. Arnold, actually, for all the high, high prices that he got for his late Terminator films, he still has made more money off Twins because of taking a percentage."
"And when you see him in the movies, he's famous for these very short one-liners that make it seem as if he is nonverbal, that he's not particularly intelligent. You don't get his humor. The first time I went to Arnold's house, I saw that this man is the greatest storyteller, the greatest entertainer ever.
He is funny, he is witty, he is quick. He can tell a story like no one else, and not just tell it, he would act it out. He would get up and stomp around and make noises with his mouth. He told me a simple story about a woman in the gym who was not working out, who was just sitting on a bench and talking on the phone to her friend and eating a bag of potato chips. And he was able to replicate the sound of eating potato chips just with his mouth. He is underappreciated."
www.taschen.com/en/limited-editions/film/03105/arnold-collector-s-edition
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Images courtesy of Taschen.
Photo credits:
Cover
Arnold Schwarzenegger for the film End of Days. Sante D'Orazio, 1999
Governor Schwarzenegger with the Lincoln Memorial · Photo by Peter Grigsby, 2009
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lulu at his Los Angeles home · Photo by Tracy Nguyen, 2021
Next Episode
Actress CATHERINE CURTIN (Stranger Things) & Artistic Director KATE MUETH (Neo-Political Cowgirls)
Why do we make art? What can the performing arts teach us about how to engage in dialogues to overcome conflict and division?
Our guests today are actress Catherine Curtin and artistic director Kate Mueth. Curtin is known for her roles on Stranger Things, Homeland, and Insecure. She played correctional officer Wanda Bell in Orange Is the New Black, and for this role she was a joint winner of two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
Mueth is the Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning dance theater company The Neo-Political Cowgirls that seeks to deepen and challenge the ways in which audiences experience stories and awaken their human connection. Based in East Hampton, New York they have performed to audiences in America and Europe.
"Because I do do enough TV and film. Sometimes the bigger the budget, you know, sometimes... (gestures as though to say 'the quality doesn't always increase'). So, I'm always glad to just relax in the creative process, and I'm always very grateful for that. I think it's why I do so much indie film because it's really fun.
...The depth of the pain that so many people who are walking the strike right now feel. It's the depth of the pain of the unhappy marriage between art and commerce. It is the depth of the pain of how we've changed as a society and how the internet and AI in the computer world, it has given us so much, but before you used to edit film on a flatbed. And every time you edited, you would make a cut, literally you would take a scissors and you would make a cut. If you made the wrong cut, you had to put the pieces back together, it wasn't a simple little thing. What we've done today is we've made everything so fast and so easy that I think there's something to the creative process about it being a little bit more of an exploration than it is a wham bam, it's done." -Catherine Curtin
www.imdb.com/name/nm0193160/
www.npcowgirls.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
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