JUNE 22 (Reuters) — Actor and former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger was greeted by hundreds of fans chanting his name as he arrived at the red carpet in Berlin on Sunday (June 21) for the European premiere of ‘Terminator Genisys’, the latest installment of the franchise.
Like the 1984 original, John Connor (played by Jason Clarke) sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time to stop the assassination by a terminator of his mother, Sarah Connor (Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke).
In the new version, the timeline is altered and the conventional roles of the players get changed.
Schwarzenegger returns to the role of the terminator he played in the first movie and even speaks the line which became the star’s oft-quoted catchphrase, “I’ll be back.”
When asked how he felt about reprising the role at the age of 67, Schwarzenegger said, “I’m having a great time with this movie. I’m in good shape. For me it is no problem to do stunts and to do the action. Nothing has changed.
“I am in good shape. I exercise every day. Daily two hours. To be always in good form. Tennis, skiing, running, bike-riding, and all. Older but not obsolete,” he added.
Actress Emilia Clarke, best known for her role in TV series Game of Thrones, plays Sarah Connor, who is just as involved in the action as her male colleagues.
When asked how she fared against them, she replied, “It was a test, I think. But I really wanted to arrive at this project being as good if not better than the boys. And so hopefully I got there.”
When asked about Schwarzenegger’s determination to play the same role he did nearly thirty years ago, the British actress was full of praise.
“It’s incredible. But Arnold’s reprising this role. He’s added so many more textures to it with the fact that our script has a really already built-in human relationship between himself and Sarah. So you get so much more of a human element added to that relationship which I think makes it new and fresh in a really good way.”
As for whether she will still be on-screen when she hits Schwarzenegger’s age, Clarke laughed and said, “Well, I would hope so. Yes, definitively.”
The other two leading men in the film, Jason Clarke and Jai Courtney, said they were not too daunted about getting involved in the popular franchise.
“You move on from that pretty quick,” Clarke told Reuters, adding, “And kind of lay down your own version of events. I looked a lot at what Eddie Furlong did, which I thought was fantastic, the young John Connor, that rebellious teenager. And took places to bring that back and show a version of John which hasn’t been seen.”
“You are of course aware of the expectations but I don’t pay attention to that making the movie. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not going to make your art any better. You just have to work hard and try to deliver quality,” said Courtney.
‘Terminator Genisys’ goes on release in Germany on July 9.
