Arnold Schwarzenegger on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #587 (Transcript)

So he said, “Well, why don’t you learn how to play the guitar?” Yeah, I don’t play the guitar. But there’s a farmer that is 100 yards up the road. He plays the guitar and he can teach. He’s also a teacher.

And so I would go to him but it just, you know, I just could see right away that that was not meant for me.

Individualism and Rebellion in Austria

THEO VON: Was there a lot of, like, when you were a child in Austria, was there a lot of, like, individualism or was it… were things very, like, regimented? Like in America you could, like, you can be an individual, right. But some countries it’s a little bit harder to kind of like, you know, be an individual and have a voice. I’m just wondering, what was it like there when you were young? Did it feel like things were regimented or it was okay to be rebellious? What was it like?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I was rebellious in a way, because, I mean, think about it. Soccer and track and field, they were kind of like the… in sports. But when I was exposed to weightlifting and to powerlifting and to bodybuilding, I fell in love with that.

And also because my heroes like Reg Park and Steve Reeves, they were doing Hercules movies. And I just started looking at those movies, right? And so I said, “I want to be like that. I don’t want to be a top soccer player. I want to be like that. I want to have some muscles like that, and I want to get into movies like that,” you know? So that all of a sudden became my dream.

THEO VON: So you really wanted to be like this?

The Vision: Becoming Mr. Universe

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. So I was fixated. It was, I was like kind of like concentrating that I kind of put visually my head on Reg Park’s body. And I said, there was a picture, a famous picture where he won the Mr. Universe contest in London in 1951. And when I saw that picture, it was like him holding the trophy and flexing his bicep.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And then I said to myself, “Can you imagine? This is me. I’m going to make this me.” And so that’s what I was training for. So my parents thought that it was kind of… what is that all about? Where did that come from?

And the whole neighborhood was kind of like wondering, what is this guy doing? Training every day, two hours, three hours a day. I came home and instead of having lunch, I would put my sit-up board up in the kitchen table and I would be doing sit-ups. Yeah, 500 sit-ups during lunch.

THEO VON: So you were addicted to… you were addicted.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Totally, totally addicted to that. Because I was driven by my vision, you know. So it was always there.

THEO VON: Yeah.

Daydreaming and Visualization

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Even when I was in school, I would sometimes just wander off when the teacher was teaching out there and writing up something on the blackboard. And I would be looking at that, and then all of a sudden, he could see that I was just kind of like staring off. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden, he threw a chalk at my head and I’d bang. And I looked back again. He says, “Arnold, I’m up here! I mean, I know you’re looking at the beautiful trees out there. They’re more beautiful maybe than me, but you got to listen what I’m saying.”

So I noticed I was always kind of drifting off and daydreaming, visualizing. Visualizing my dreams. Always visualizing my dreams being on that stage, the Mr. Universe contest, doing maybe Hercules movies, going to America and all of that. So it was very different. So that was not the norm. So I did step out of the norm.

And because everyone else was talking about, “Oh, I’m going to go and get a job with the government because I want to make sure that I collect my pension.” When I was 65, notice I had no interest in any of that pension. I mean, what are we talking about, the age of 18? We start talking about pensions. I mean, it’s crazy, right?

But that’s the European way. Everyone looks for stability, or especially in those times, times where government was really ruling, you know.

Coming to America: Nixon vs. Humphrey

So then that’s also, I think, an explanation of why when I came over here to America in 1968, and I saw Hubert Humphrey and Nixon, he was the vice president under Johnson.

THEO VON: Okay.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And so he was to become… well, Johnson was after Kennedy, then he was… Humphrey was his vice president. So he was running for president.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, eat gumdrops, that guy.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And so it was really interesting when I listened to the debates and I didn’t understand maybe three-quarters of it, but I had a friend that spoke German and he translated for me. And when I heard of what Nixon said, it was so opposite of what I grew up with, which I didn’t like. The government was in kind of in charge of everything in Austria.

THEO VON: In Austria, exactly.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And so I was in Germany and in all those countries over there in Europe, socialism was the system that I grew up in. So when Nixon spoke, I felt like, “Wow, get government off your back.”

THEO VON: Get the government off your back.

The Appeal of Freedom

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Right. Wow. And lowering… lowering the taxes. Strong military, strong police force, strong… gladiator in a strong economy. Let the people be free. Let them shop all around the world and blah, blah, blah. And I said to myself, “This is like unbelievable.”

And then when Humphrey spoke, it was like I was back in Austria, you know? So then I said to myself, “What are the parties here?” Because I didn’t understand, really, the parties yet.

THEO VON: What was it about Humphrey’s that made it feel like you’re back in Austria?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, is it? Government is the solution.

THEO VON: Oh, I see. So he was more like the cage.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: We all know that the government is not the solution. I mean, it’s like the free enterprise, the economy and all this. You got to let people be free and not be controlled by government. Government is good, but you have to find kind of the middle ground of all this stuff.

THEO VON: Yeah. You can’t… if you rely solely on the government for your life, then you’ll just be a, you’ll be a part of the…

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Government, basically, and you become a vegetable.

THEO VON: Yeah.

No Safety Net: The American Dream

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Because you create a safety net. Then you don’t have the will to really kind of make it on your own. So what the big advantage of coming to America was that there was no safety net. So I was on my own.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So I had to get really creative. Okay. How can I go and go to school and educate myself? How can I go and get more English classes? How can I go to Santa Monica City College and at the same time work and at the same time train five hours a day and do all of those kind of things?

So this is… but it was up to me now to be successful, not up to the government.

THEO VON: Oh, I like that.

Early Political Views and Nixon Republicanism

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So government was providing the opportunity, the structure. But that is what I enjoyed. And so this is why I became kind of like a Nixon Republican. And people always were kind of like, especially in California, which is much more liberal. So I really enjoyed it. Nixon, of course, came from California.

THEO VON: Question, Arnold. Was it scary to tell your parents that to leave Austria? Did people do that at the time? I’m just a little bit curious on what it was like to say, I’m leaving here and I’m going to go to America. Was it even a popular path for people to go?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, remember I started saying this when I was 10.

THEO VON: I see. So it had been. Your parents knew it was in your head.

The Dream of America

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, exactly. So I saw a documentary, a black and white documentary in a school that showed those films with this 8 millimeters, whatever films on the little screen. And television was not the common thing at that time in Austria. So we didn’t grow up with that. But they showed this film and I saw a documentary about America.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Now I see the Empire State Building. I said, wait a minute, this building is like 100 times taller than any of the buildings in Graz where I grew up in Austria. And then I saw the Golden Gate Bridge. Then it’s a Pacific Coast Highway. Then I saw all of this kind of great, great things.

I saw the six lane highways, I saw the big Cadillacs with the big fins sticking out. And I said to myself, and we had all these little kind of cars and Muscle Beach and all of this stuff, the Hollywood. I got to go to America. Go to America. Austria is not the place. It was almost kind of like that my gene was over here. So this is, it kind of, I gravitated towards America.

Not that they hated Austria, but I just wanted to leave and go do something different. So my parents always saw me as being different. So it was not a surprise to them that I wanted to go. As soon as I was through with high school and trade school that I want to go into the military. So I went in the military. Because after you go and serve in the military, then you can get your passport and you can travel.

THEO VON: So you had to, you had to go to the military to get your passport in Austria?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: That’s right.

THEO VON: Is it still that way?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, I don’t think it’s different now. Everything is different because everything has changed.

Family and Military Service

THEO VON: Yeah. And you had a brother as well, right? Was he, did he go to the military?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: He was in the military.

THEO VON: Was he older than you or younger?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: He was a year older.

THEO VON: Oh, cool.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: He was a year, Meinhard. Exactly. So he was a year earlier, but he passed away, as you know.

THEO VON: I didn’t know it.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, very young. At the age of 24. Oh, I didn’t know that’s the way. Yeah, it was like a drunk.

THEO VON: That’s him right there.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. No, this is, this is the Franz Dischinger. He was my training partner in Munich. So when I went, I went first. So after, after the army, the Austrian army, I immediately left to go to Munich because I got an offer. Because now I at that meantime, I became the European champion in bodybuilding in the junior division.

THEO VON: Okay, so you became the military, so.

Munich and Early Bodybuilding Success

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, I became this. While I was in the military, I won this title, best built man of Europe. I was 18 years old. So now I get this offer in Munich. It’s the biggest gym to go and become a trainer. So same as, okay, I’m going to serve out my time here, get out of here a year later. And then I go to Munich and I become a trainer.

Then I can train anytime, 24 hours a day, because I actually lived in the gym. So I could get up. Literally if I wake up at three in the morning and I can fall back to sleep, I go out to the gym.

THEO VON: How did you live in there? Like where they just had a bed in the side or something?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It was a little room there was from here to there where you sit and a bed and just a little kind of a thing with cabinet, with drawers. I put my stuff in. That was it. That was it. And then I walked out of it. It used to be an office there for the gym. And I just moved in there because I had no money.

THEO VON: And you were like, this is what I do all the time anyway. This is like.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. So I was, I was in heaven.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Are you kidding me? I mean, I went out there, turned on the lights and I was posing with the, all the overhead lights. I was posing in the mirror all the time. At night I would wake up and I would go out there posing and posing, very intense.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And very passionate about bodybuilding and perfecting my body and going to London to that very same contest that Reg Park won, the Mr. Universe. And that very same year when I went out to Munich, 1966, I became now Mr. Europe literally two months later. And then best built man of Europe. And then I went to the Mr. Universe contest at the age of 19. I was the youngest competitor and I came second.

THEO VON: And where was that held at?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It was in London.

THEO VON: That was in London.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Same stage as Reg Park.

THEO VON: So you still hadn’t made it to the US yet?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, no, not yet. No, no.

Relationship with His Brother

THEO VON: And was your brother also lifting weights? Was he a weightlifter?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, he was not interested in that. He was much more, I think, academic, I would say. Read a lot. And he started out, he was really good in school. I was not that good in school. Yeah, so.

THEO VON: So did you guys get along pretty well? Is that him or.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, that’s him. Yeah, that’s Meinhard.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s cool.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah.

THEO VON: What is mine, Meinhard.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, Meinhard. Yeah.

THEO VON: I just wonder what it would be like because I have a brother too. So I’m just thinking sometimes, like it would be. Yeah, I just think about my brother a lot. So I guess I was just curious what it was like, what your brother was like.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, he was different than me, but we did hang out together. He did come to the gym every so often and he worked out with me, but he was not into it.

THEO VON: He wasn’t.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Naturally, he had a better body than I had.

THEO VON: Oh, really?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, he had a really V-shaped body, had wide shoulders, a very, very small waist.

THEO VON: God, they always give it to the person that doesn’t want it.

The Value of Struggle

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I know, yeah, but that’s, I think what is interesting about it is that you struggle much more in the beginning and to catch up and then all of a sudden, you see your own potential.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: You don’t see it in the beginning, but then, I mean, I think it was like going to the gym was my first time where I got compliments because my parents were not into that. When it was an Austrian kind of upbringing, kind of everything, they correct everything. Then the grades are no good and the soccer. Why didn’t you kick the ball? You were like 10 yards away from the goal. You didn’t kick it in, you tripped over the. I mean it was always some kind of a.

THEO VON: Always trying to correct you.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly, that’s right. Yeah. It was always a complaint and then if you made a mistake, you get smacked and stuff like that. So it was that kind of upbringing. But it was very helpful to me because it actually gave me the motivation.

THEO VON: To leave Austria and to give you control. I mean, if you’re bodybuilding, it’s just you against you. There’s no, you don’t have to depend on anybody else. I mean, I guess you have to depend on the judges when you go to actually compete. But day to day it is you against your own emotions and mentality and ability.

The Importance of Training Partners

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes. But also at the same time, even though it is a sport that you are on your own, but then in the end, you still rely on your training partners. I was very fortunate always that I had the mentality of being able to attract the best training partners. So I had guys that was hungry as I was because that’s the important thing. If you have someone that is not as hungry, then it doesn’t really mean anything.

THEO VON: Right.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: If you have someone that competes with you, that counts out the reps, then he wants to do an extra two reps more than you do and you get up the weight. So always a good training. But so I’m a big believer in that. We really can’t in the end do anything by ourselves.

But that’s why we say don’t call me a self-made man because I’m a product of a lot, a lot of help if it is in bodybuilding or just. I mean, think about Joe Weider after winning two Mr. Universe titles in London, the amateur Mr. Universe the following year, 1968, the professional Mr. Universe. So I was like the youngest Mr. Universe ever.

THEO VON: And that was the year after you got second.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: That’s right.

THEO VON: Okay.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: 1967 I was 20 years old. And I want to become the youngest Mr. Universe. And now I’m on that stage exactly where Reg Park was and win the Mr. Universe. And not only that, but Reg Park immediately sent me a fax to London. He said, “I want to invite you to South Africa to give posing exhibitions and do strongman act down there.” So I was invited by Reg Park eventually. Then within, by end of the year, I went down to South Africa.

THEO VON: And you still hadn’t gone to the US yet.

Joe Weider and Coming to America

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I haven’t gone to the US but what brought me to the US was, which was kind of my dream. Someone would notice me bodybuilding that they would take me because bodybuilding was an American sport. It was a European sport. It was American sport, really. And so I all of a sudden get this invitation from Joe Weider, who was the publisher of the muscle magazines. He published like four big muscle magazines, Flex and Strength and Health and.

THEO VON: Oh yeah, we get some of them, I think when I was a kid.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And we didn’t use them all of this. And he had also equipment company, the food supplement company.

THEO VON: Because it’s weights, right? I’ve seen the weights before.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It’s weights, it’s the food supplements, it’s. And his brother was the head of the organization, the Bodybuilding Federation.

THEO VON: And this is when you came to the U.S.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, he brought me over in 1968.

THEO VON: Okay, before we get there, Arnold, and not to interrupt or anything, but you did a show. You went to like one of the first interracial shows that was in South Africa.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: That was later on.

THEO VON: Oh, that was later on.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So it was 1975.

THEO VON: Got it.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Okay, so. Absolutely correct. So you get to the U.S. Very good research.

THEO VON: Do you remember your first. Thank you. Do you remember your first day in America?

Finding Community in America

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh yes, it was in Miami. I went to Miami and I was competing there in a competition. And then after that I came out to California and I was picked up in California at the airport by a bodybuilding photographer by the name of Arizela and Dick Tyler, who wrote for the muscle magazines.

They picked me up and took me to an apartment that Joe Weider rented for me and it was fantastic. I mean, from then on I got all the help in the world now because that’s when I really realized the generosity of the American people.

THEO VON: Wow.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I mean, they gave me, the bodybuilders. Thanksgiving came up after that because I came over here in October. November was Thanksgiving. So there was this whole thing about giving me pillows and giving me blankets and giving me dishes and silverware.

THEO VON: Were you homeless or something? Why were they giving you all that?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: When you move into an apartment, what do you get? I mean, it was a furnished apartment.

THEO VON: And you were living in LA at that point.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, it was in the Valley, over there in the Valley. And then all those bodybuilders came to me and they brought me all this stuff. It was unbelievable. So I could not even believe how generous they were. And these were a lot of times people that didn’t know me at all.

But just because bodybuilding and joining a club, you become kind of part of that family. And so they were very sweet and kind, and I would never forget that. That’s actually what made me then think about, well, when I ever make it, I will give that back. I will help other people myself.

The Birth of Gold’s Gym

THEO VON: What’s it like finding a gym that really fits you? Like, what’s that like at that level of bodybuilding? Were there a couple gyms you tried out and you’re like, this isn’t it? Or did you already know where you wanted?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I came over here. There was a gym called Vince’s Gym that had all the champions training.

THEO VON: Where was that located?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It was over in the Valley, in Ventura Boulevard in North Hollywood, and a very famous gym. This is where Larry Scott, Mr. Olympia, trained, and Don Howard, who was Mr. America, and Don Peterson, all those guys were training there.

And then I ventured over here every so often for powerlifting. There was a gym called Gold’s Gym. Not many bodybuilders trained there. Some, but not many. Most of them were like shot putters and power lifters and weightlifters and so on. And it was a much more rough gym.

But somehow because of the Austrian gym where I kind of started the first three years in this weightlifting club, it reminded me of that. So I started getting more and more attracted to that gym and then I moved from the Valley.

THEO VON: Over here to Venice.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: To Venice and was still part of Santa Monica, actually was, one of the streets not far away from here. And then I went daily training there, and then Gold’s Gym, then other bodybuilders came from all over the country to train there too.

THEO VON: Because you were there.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I was there. And that was Joe Weider, now started writing in his magazines about Arnold is training Gold’s Gym. And if you want to go and train in a great place, this is the place to go.

THEO VON: Was it hard for you to train? I mean, were people at that point just standing around watching you train?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, because there was a lot of great bodybuilders.

THEO VON: Oh, I see. Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh yeah. So then others came out here from Florida and from Kentucky and from New York, and they all started joining Gold’s Gym instead of training there. So this was kind of like the place that had the best bodybuilders in the world training in. Of course, that’s how Gold’s Gym became famous. It was a little gym. It was not big. It was 3,000 square feet, I think it was.

THEO VON: Well, I remember when I first moved to Los Angeles, we went to a firehouse. I don’t know if it’s still there or not.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. Was that the place?

THEO VON: It was a big protein place. It was like a, was it? I think.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, firehouse now is a restaurant down there.

THEO VON: It used to be like a place where you could get literally like a bowl of chicken.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, yeah. You still can get there.

THEO VON: You can get great scrambled, like 30 eggs or whatever.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, exactly.

THEO VON: That’s crazy. It was like, yeah. I remember I ate, I ordered like a month worth of food right there just for just that lunch. Yeah. It took like five hours to get out of there just because I didn’t want to.

Diet and Nutrition

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. I was never a big eater, so to me that meant nothing. If I had a little steak and two scrambled eggs, I was perfectly fine. I was full for the day. Not for the day, no. But let’s say in the morning steak and eggs or scrambled eggs or something like this.

I always had to take protein drinks in between meals because I could never eat enough to get my 250 grams of protein because I weighed 250 pounds. And the idea then was if every kind of pound of body weight you have, you should have one gram of protein.

THEO VON: Yeah. When, because I used to buy, I don’t know if I used to bodybuild. I used to use steroids when I was growing up and just lift weights a lot. I loved it for years, and I think whenever I get, whenever I quit working as much, I’ll probably try to get back more weightlifting. Was steroids pretty popular then or what was it like? Was that part of the, because I’m sure it was part of the culture.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It was not yet, but it was something that was in the beginning, very experimental.

THEO VON: So would you hear it, would it be on the black market or it was just public. It was just like, people would talk about it as a supplement.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It might be in some places was in the black market. I don’t know. But all I know is that we always went to a doctor because they want to make sure that they measure your blood pressure and they check your health and all of that stuff. Because it has side effects.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And especially if you take it beyond of what they recommend. So if they recommend, let’s say, one shot a week, and you start taking one shot a day or something, which is of course the case a lot of today, that people are overdosing. And that’s why you see some bodybuilders actually die because of the overdose of drugs and all this stuff.

THEO VON: Did you see friends go down that road or people as other bodybuilders go down that road where they would get addicted to it?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Not in my days. It was new. But now it’s, I think, really somewhat, I would say, out of control. Yeah.

Career Decisions and Retirement

THEO VON: Whenever you start, you’ve had such an interesting life and career, you’ve gotten to do so many things. What do you think? Was there a time period in your life that you wish you would maybe done a little bit different?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, I don’t really. There’s no move that ever made career wise. I thought that I had a real good nose when to make my moves forward and when I should retire from bodybuilding. When it felt like, okay, I don’t have the joy anymore.

After six, after five Mr. Universe competitions that I won Mr. World and Mr. Olympia six times, I retired in 1975 after that competition in South Africa that you mentioned just earlier. So that was kind of the last competition. I did come back in 1980 again for the Mr. Olympia, but that was really just an afterthought. But I mean really, I retired 1975.

THEO VON: And after the South African show.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: After the South African show.

South Africa and the Townships

THEO VON: Tell me a little bit about that because I bet it was really interesting. Just South Africa is probably my favorite country. I mean, it is beautiful.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It is a gorgeous country. And of course at that time blacks and whites and everyone was separated. I mean by separated meaning they had different rights. The whites were the one that ruled the country. The blacks were kind of kept down.

THEO VON: Was Desmond Tutu down there at the time? Do you know if he was speaking?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, of course he was. But I mean, the whites really were kind of in control.

THEO VON: They were the kind of the leaders of it.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly. The Dutch and the British. It was always a fight between those two in the parliament and all that. And so then I got to meet and to know the Minister of Immigration and he was also Minister of Sports and Minister of Labor and blah, blah, blah. So he was a very powerful guy in administration.

And when I met him, he said to me, “Arnold, when you come over here to South Africa and you do posing exhibitions and strongman acts, you should also go to the townships.”

THEO VON: To the townships?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, yeah. So I said, the townships, like the Sowetos? Yeah. So it was, of course, I did not know. So he then explained it to me. And then he would organize with Reg Park together for me to go in. Because it was not what we call the safest place in town.

Not that they wanted to do harm to you, but I mean, for someone like me to come in there and do a demonstration there. Oh, I mean, everyone got lit. I mean, they were drunk, they were celebrating that someone would come in and give them the respect and do something special for them. So very appreciative.

Right. So I would go in there and I was in the cage into the Sowetos.

THEO VON: Is that what it’s called? Can you bring that up for me, Nick?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. The township, they’re all over the place. In every town in South Africa, there is townships like that. There’s places where the blacks would live, right? Very kind of.

The Sowetos and South African Demonstrations

THEO VON: They’re called the Sowetos. Are they?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: That’s one of them, yeah.

THEO VON: Sowetos. Yeah, I think so.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So in any case, I will go in there and do a demonstration and do my posing and lift weights and all of this kind of stuff in these small towns. There was thousands of them surrounding and they’re screaming loud and having the greatest time. And then we would go out.

THEO VON: Oh, they would put you on the grill. I’m surprised. I bet they were so hungry sometimes. They were like, look at this wealth.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It was fantastic, the reception and everything. But the reason I mentioned that is because it led to the conversation with that minister of sports and he said to me, “We should have an international competition here in South Africa. We should work together on that.” And I said, “Okay, we will.”

His name was Dr. Kornhoff. He was an extraordinary man, very smart. But it just shows you that there were people like him that already wanted to do more for the blacks and to elevate them.

THEO VON: Yeah.

Bringing Mr. Olympia to South Africa

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So then I set him up with Ben Weider, with Joe Weider, his brother, who was the head of the International Federation of Bodybuilding. They got together and they hit it off really well. So Joe Weider and Ben Weider worked with him to bring the Mr. Olympia contest to South Africa, to Pretoria, the capital of South Africa.

But the conditions were that they were able to have a mixed audience.

THEO VON: Okay, so black and white audience. Have they done that ever?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Never.

THEO VON: Wow.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So there was the first time there was blacks, but there was not just black and white in South Africa. There was a group that was called blacks, there was a group that was called colored, there was a group that was called Indians, there was a group that was white. I mean, there was like five different, and Asians. So everyone was different.

THEO VON: A lot of variety.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It was not considered we are all equal there. And so what Ben negotiated was that we have a mixed audience, that anyone, no matter what their nationality and what kind of colors or religious beliefs, anyone should be able to come to this competition. And also, not only that, but to be a judge. We will have also half black and half white judges.

THEO VON: So was that scary to go before a black judge? Did you think that they would judge you fairly?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, not at all. Because I was competing in America at that time and I was used to it. There was Leroy Colbert, who was the first guy with the 22-inch arms, big bodybuilder from the 50s and 60s. And he was a judge in New York several times and he was a totally honest judge. There were other black judges.

That’s the great thing about bodybuilding. In bodybuilding, there was no prejudice. There were some people in bodybuilding that were prejudiced.

THEO VON: Right.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: But in general, especially under the Weiders, I think because they were Jewish.

THEO VON: Bring them up in Weider.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I think it had something to do with the fact that they were that kind of open-minded about it.

THEO VON: Oh yeah, a lot of times.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly.

THEO VON: They’re like the leaders in promoting diversity.

Breaking Down Barriers in Bodybuilding

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: That’s right. Yes. There was no prejudice there at all. And as a matter of fact, there was a guy by the name of Bob Hoffman. He always made sure that when they had the AAU, the Mr. America competition, only whites could win. No black could win there.

THEO VON: Oh, really?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. So there was really embarrassing.

THEO VON: So there were some barriers within the sport.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: There were guys like Sergio Oliva that would be competing in 1966 or 1965 in a Mr. America, and he would get beaten by white guys, and it was totally unfair. Or Harold Poole got beaten in 1963 by Vern Weaver, which I thought was unfair.

So what they did then was because there were now two federations, there was the IFBB, there was the AAU, the American Athletic Union. So they then went from that federation over to the IFBB, and Sergio Oliva won immediately. He became Mr. America, he became Mr. World and Mr. Universe, then Mr. Olympia. And he actually, in the first Mr. Olympia competition, Sergio Oliva beat me.

THEO VON: Wow.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: 1969, fairly. I mean, there was no complaints there at all because he was extraordinary. And so then in 1970, I came back and I beat him in the Mr. World competition in Columbus, Ohio, and then two weeks later in the Mr. Olympia in New York.

So we were big rivals. And I was, of course, a big admirer of his and a big idol. And he treated me really well. We went to Chicago and trained together at the Duncan YMCA and all that stuff. I wanted to learn from him.

Training at the YMCA

THEO VON: I love the YMCA, don’t you?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh, absolutely. It’s great.

THEO VON: I’ve always been a fan of the YMCA. It’s never perfect there, but everything’s kind of a little bit old enough where I like the equipment. It’s never too fancy.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. But you can get the job done. To me, it’s not about the luxury. It’s much more about the will to succeed. And when I see pictures online of bodybuilders that are training in the sand in Africa right now, blacks that are having cement weights on a bar.

THEO VON: God.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And a cheap bench. And when they do their bench press.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And the other day I saw one of those kind of videos, and they get up from the bench. I’m looking at this as this guy could win Mr. America. Win Mr. California or something like that. He looks extraordinary. So it’s really not the technology so much. It helps you. But I mean, in the end it is really what you have to work on is the will.

THEO VON: The will was the best. There’s nothing better than just having like a little weight bench outside in your backyard or something, and you go out there or in your garage, and it’s just…

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I did my deadlift right in front of the house in Graz in Austria, which now is a museum, the house where I grew up.

THEO VON: Your home is a museum where you grew up?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: The home, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I’m going to go within two weeks. So we have our Pump Club meeting there with the European bodybuilders, members from the Pump Club, and then there’s some Americans that are also coming over there.

The Energy of the South African Competition

THEO VON: That audience in South Africa, did it have the feeling during the show of like, this is like a novel thing? Was there that energy in the event?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: There was so much energy in that auditorium, and it was not a big auditorium. It maybe held, I would say, 1,500 people, I would guess. And the energy was fantastic. The joy of being together was fantastic.

And I really think it had a tremendous impact also in the future of South Africa. And it was just wonderful that there were leaders there that believed in that and wanted to organize. And everyone, the police and everyone was really cooperative. Everyone worked together.

So it was a fantastic show, the fantastic competition, and of course, I won. So it’s always a fantastic competition when you win six Mr. Olympia. But what was interesting about it was I got a thousand dollars cash prize, and I was really upset about that because I felt like, wait a minute, in 1965, ten years ago, when Larry Scott won Mr. Olympia, he got a thousand dollars, and now ten years later, we still get a thousand dollars.

So that’s what made me actually motivated to go then in front of the IFBB, the International Bodybuilding Congress, and to ask them for permission to organize the next year’s Mr. Olympia in Columbus, Ohio. And that’s exactly what we did. I got the permission, and then we upped the cash prize to $5,000, then to $10,000, to $20,000. We doubled it every year. And now we’re giving over a million dollars away for cash prizes for the Arnold Classic.

The Art of Posing

THEO VON: What’s one of the things right before you go on, because I’m guessing you’re backstage, right? You wait to go on, and they call your name out, and then you go out and do your poses. Is that how it goes?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, in those days, the way it worked was the whole lineup of all the competitors. Now, if you understand, Mr. Olympia means that you have to have won a world championship title before. So Mr. World, Mr. International or Mr. Universe. So those guys are the top guys.

So you have like six or seven guys that are on the stage. And so the judges, they ask you all to come out. You have a certain time at 1 o’clock, be ready for prejudging and then you come out and then you stand there and then the judges will shuffle you around. And they say, “Okay, can number seven go over there? Number one goes over.” Until number one goes over, number seven was, just to see them next to each other, different people next to each other. Turn around, turn sideways.

THEO VON: Then what’s the scariest way to be turned? Was there ever a part where you’re like, this is, I got to kind of cheat this angle a little bit?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, I mean, for me, it was basically always a tremendous joy to be up on stage because it’s one of those things where you feel like when you’re really ready. I always felt in most cases that I was so ready that no matter what angle it was, I was ready to go.

And I always had a smile on my face and I flexed everything. The key thing is that you have practiced your posing enough that you can stand there in a flexed state that looks relaxed. You stand there like this, but you still flex. You keep the stomach in and you keep the abs flexed and the calves flexed. The biceps flexed. So that was the idea and I was always having great joy with that.

THEO VON: So it’s a lot of acting too. It’s kind of some acting up there.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It is one of the great forms of acting. Because you cannot go and say to the judge, “Look at me, I’m the most perfect up here. Look at my abs.” No, you have to do all that without talking. You have to communicate with them and also with the audience.

Because remember that the sound of the audience is very important because you want to get big applause. So the judges say, “Oh, this guy got the most applause. I mean, he definitely has the best body.”

So but then you wait for the individual posing. So then you come at one after the next, you do a three-minute posing routine.

THEO VON: And what’s the trick there? Is there any trick of the trade, a last-minute thing you use? You would pinch your tits or just rub some molasses in your lats? What was like a last-minute thing people would do? Put ice under your arms or something?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, I think the key thing is just that when you go there, that you’re so ready that you don’t shake. You see how many bodybuilders, I’m sure you’ve seen it, they hit a shot and then after a few seconds, they start shaking.

THEO VON: Oh, so that’s bad.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, for that level, I mean, it’s natural. When you have a Mr. Venice Beach competition.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Mr. Muscle Beach, Mr. Montgomery, Alabama.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Beginners, of course, they make mistakes and they’re not as well trained. But when you get to the Mr. Olympia level, it’s unacceptable.

THEO VON: You want to make it look so it.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: You want to hit the shot.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And you smile. You look at the judges and you smile. And then you smoothly move into the next shot, and then it hands and you just a movement. It has to be all very gracefully and no shaking. So that again, that you say to the judges, look, I am so ready for this. Unlike maybe the others. So that’s that. That’s what it is.

So it’s all about the seven P’s. Proper prior planning prevents pissed poor performance. Right. And the Marines, they have that.

THEO VON: Proper prior planning prevents his poor performance.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly. So that’s what it is about. It’s the same there. You come prepared. You make sure that you work. Everyone has weak points, so you have to make sure that you worked as much in your weak points so that the judges see that you’re not blind, that you notice that last year you maybe had not so defined legs.

Yes, maybe you won, but the legs were so-so. And then the next time when you come back, you have to have ripped legs.

THEO VON: Right.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Right. So then the judge, that guy got the message. So this is what it’s all about, because in the end, you really are an artist. You’re a sculptor. You’re not just the athlete that is competing, but you’re the sculptor. But you’re your own on your own body.

Instead of a chisel and a hammer that you kind of sculpt a physique, you do it now with machines and with the reps and the different exercises where you say, I need a little bit more of the real deltoids. I need a little bit more separation in the front between the deltoid and the pectoral muscle. I need a little bit more cut on the lower abs. I need the calves have to be balanced. They’re not big enough for the arms, because it should be the same size as your arms are and all of those kind of things.

So you become kind of like an artist in your own body. That’s what the idea did.

Working Out Every Body Part

THEO VON: Was there, did you ever have to work out the top of your feet or your hand? Were there things you could do for your face, even in some stuff like that?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, no, that’s, I mean, there are people that pay attention to that. I didn’t.

THEO VON: Right.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: To me, it’s always about the bottom line.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So, but what is it that we’re doing here? What we’re doing here is we are showing the most perfect physique and who is the best in actually displaying that physique? Because it’s all about presentation, presentation, presentation.

It’s like a piece of art. You can have a painting that is maybe amongst many other paintings and you wouldn’t even notice is the Picasso. But then when you put it up there on a white wall and did a beautiful gold frame with the special lighting, and then you have someone talk about it, now you can auction something off for a lot of money. Right.

So it’s all about presentation. And so this is why I think the same is also in bodybuilding and the way you present your body, the way you present your muscles and did at that point.

From Bodybuilding to Politics

THEO VON: I mean, I can see now how even lobbying for certain things to be changing in the prize money. Right. I can almost see where your direction comes to even end up in politics. Right. You can start to see it like, well, this should be more this. There should be some adjustments.

You weren’t just a competitor. You were also somebody who was examining how things were run and how they could be better. Especially when you were partnering with guys like Ben Weider and stuff like that, and probably inspired by those guys to probably get this larger vision of things that were going on.

Did you, when you got into film? So at that point, you know how to act, you know how to impress the front row, you know how to use probably every element of your body to impress people. So that kind of just leans, leads kind of perfectly into acting.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. But remember that what is key and all of this stuff is also personality. And I don’t know if you can train a personality or not. I mean, I don’t know what you think about that, but I mean, I think some people just don’t have the greatest personality.

THEO VON: Some people have been born.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: People have a great personality.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And so I think that I developed over the years, not that someone taught me that, but I developed a personality because my joy for whatever I did came through. So when people talk to me about bodybuilding in those days, I was not shy of the press. Other bodybuilders for decades didn’t talk to the press.

So when I came over here, people thought that when they saw my body they thought it was a football player or it was a wrestler or something like that. But the last thing they guessed was bodybuilder. So they didn’t know about bodybuilding. So I, in 1974 I hired, I was the first bodybuilder to hire a publicist. And so we went and did talk shows, the Johnny Carson show, Merv Griffin show, Mike Douglas show and all of those shows.

THEO VON: And were there football teams that tried to get you to come and play for them? Did you ever get an offer?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, because I mean, I think I made it very clear in my interviews that my vision is be the greatest bodybuilder of all times and to go then into acting. So even when people came to me, because I was always very good in business, I started business, I got my degree in business while I was over here and doing the training for bodybuilding at SMC.

THEO VON: Did you go to SMC?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I went to Santa Monica City College, to UCLA and got my degree in business and it was business administration. And I was just naturally always gifted for making deals and being creative.

THEO VON: Got it.

Building the Arnold Classic

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And I always understood how it works, right. And so in bodybuilding, for instance, it’s one thing to say, okay, I’m going to up the cash price to $20,000, let’s say from within a three year period. We open, we had, we give away $20,000 and the beginning. But then you have to say, okay, where do we get this money from?

THEO VON: Ah, sponsors, right?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So now I have to go out and hustle the sponsors and says, now of course we have the biggest bodybuilding and fitness convention in Columbus, Ohio in the world with 200,000 people coming through there in three days. We have every company displaying their products there, their machines, the food, supplements, clothes, Arnold, the Arnold Classic, Arnold Classic.

It’s always the first week in March and it’s three days, the whole thing. So, and now, like I said, now we raise enough money where we can give away over a million dollars. As a matter of fact, this coming year we’re going to go up to a million and a half dollars. So it’s all kinds of great things happening. But I was able to build it to that, right? Because I have a business mind, right? They know exactly how that works and how do we attract everyone and bring everyone together?

THEO VON: Were there women all weightlifting at that time or?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, you were the first Mr. Olympia company. Ms. Olympia competition was a guy by the name of Schneider from, he was back east from the Philadelphia area, and we did that together.

THEO VON: Oh, you guys started it?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. Well, yes, because the women were all kind of complaining, why can we compete? So we did a little shown. We called it Miss Olympia. And because the International Federation of Bodybuilding at that point had no interest in women bodybuilding.

THEO VON: Why was it, you think? Was it just their view of women at the time?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, it’s at the time it was, they were stuck. And we created this federation for the guys.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Why are we, why are we getting, it’s like gym owners like Joe Gold, he would not let women train. Why? Because, not because he was against women. No, we love women coming in there. But he figured, I don’t have the room for another bathroom here. I have 3,000 square feet. I have only for the man, the shower and the bathroom.

THEO VON: Some of those girls are pissed standing up, I’ll tell you.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, but I mean, we had women coming in and they watch us work out, but they couldn’t train there until they got in a bigger space, and then women were included in the whole thing. And so the Federation was a little bit reluctant to do that. And when we did the Miss Olympia and all of the girls really enjoyed that, that they were able to go on stage to also compete.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: With the muscles and all that stuff, the Federation then woke up and they said, okay, we’re going to get involved in that and we’re going to go get. And since then, it has been booming, and they’ve been doing not only bodybuilding competitions, but fitness competitions and beauty company.

THEO VON: Does Arnold Classic have women’s division?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s great. I didn’t know that. Sorry. Oh, wow, look at these chocolate babies right here, huh? Yeah. Everybody kind of gets chocolatier, huh?

The Art of Tanning

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: The tanned. Now you have this tanning stuff.

THEO VON: Was it real tanning back then or was it?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No.

THEO VON: What was the key to the best tan? The best tan.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: We got the best tan that we could get. So I would work out a lot of times outside in the weight lifting platform in Venice.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, I love that.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So you get kind of tanned all over the place, doing chin ups and doing bench presses and incline and dips and all this stuff. Then we would jump in the ocean again, come back and work out some more and all this. But on the end, we then added to that 10, 10 in a minute by Helena Rubenstein. Oh, so I don’t even know if this exists anymore.

THEO VON: Bring it up. Tan in a minute, huh? But 60 seconds.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: That was in those days, it was the big trick. So you put it on with the sponge. You just poured it out on a little plate and put it on with a sponge. And you hit a buddy of yours that did your back and stuff. Again, the back of the thighs and all of that stuff. So this is what he did. That’s why a lot of the day they spray it on.

THEO VON: Right.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: They have actual experts come to the bodybuilding show and backstage there’s a people that manufacture the staining stuff and they would then help bodybuilders and sprayed on and off that. So it is much more professional today.

THEO VON: But at the time. So you had somebody, they would put that tan in a can, basically.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: They would put it in a bottle. It was in a bottle.

THEO VON: And you’d have a friend do your back. Would anybody ever sabotage somebody and not do their back really good?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No. But I mean, there were some people that were really stupid and then did not know how to put it on. It would show kind of like streaks of the, because it ended up mulatto around the wrist. So we put on just a light kind of layer. It was all about just a little subtle thing because it’s not going to make you win. It just makes you the photos a little bit better when you have a little bit of color.

THEO VON: And what was it called if somebody went too dark? Would you just call them a little chocolate bunny or something like somebody.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It was up to the individual. As a matter of fact, they tell you that you can see in our Arnold Classic a lot of times when even the guys turn around.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: You sometimes don’t even know who is black and who is not.

THEO VON: Oh yeah, because.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Because, because they’re so dark now. The tanning has gone so sophisticated.

THEO VON: And look at this guy.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I mean, yeah. So he’s a perfect. When he turns around, you would think it’s a black guy standing there for sure.

THEO VON: A nutmeg fella.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah.

THEO VON: That is just a little molasses baby. That’s so remarkable.

Fubar and Continuing to Work

THEO VON: I want to talk about your new show. You do have some stuff. Just so we make sure we talk about it, man. Fubar. I watched your first episode, so I guess it’s not out yet, right? No, in season two. It’s kind of great because it brings me through all this nostalgia of watching you over the years. Like, I feel like it’s a little bit of all your roles into one. Did it feel like that a little bit when you’re shooting it or what?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: The idea of the show is, of course, when you act out, then you find those moments where you can play all of the different roles. But the idea of the show is just to do what we did with True Lies. What Jim Cameron did with True Lies, right? So it was how do we go and do a show where you pack it with action and also with comedy, with a bit humor and also with kind of soap opera, various relationships, interesting relationships and so on.

I think that the writers did a really good job because just like in True Lies, I’m the number one spy in this show. But when I come home, so I kick a out there, I take care of the job all the time, wipe out the enemy, all the terrorists. But when I come home, I have to deal with the everyday crap. Like we all do, right. If you have to worry about the kids, the wife is mad at you because you were gone for a week again and you couldn’t really explain.

I always, because my wife does not know that I’m a spy. So you always had to lie and have to have this equipment company and there’s a health convention there. They have to go to this convention. Then I come home and have to make up stories. They said the sales guys are really interesting. He said I tried to sell my equipment. Then over there talked about his life cycles. All of a sudden they said I was so upset about this whole thing.

You just make up all these stories which is, but I’m getting, there’s a divorce there. Then my daughter all of a sudden is in the CIA and then she’s also a spy and all of this stuff. So there’s all these conflicts that are going on and it makes it a really interesting show then to watch because it’s relationships, it’s action, it’s funny and all that. And so last show did very well the last series and now they did the second season and so now we see how that is doing.

THEO VON: Yeah, I think there’s a level of also nostalgia getting you, getting to see you still operate in these roles. You’ve just, you continue to keep your, I mean you’re, you just continue to want to work. It does. Because you don’t have to work anymore.

The Importance of Staying Active

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, let me tell you something. I love to work. Why? Because it makes you active. And I just think the most important thing is as we get older you don’t have to worry about any of that right now. But I mean, eventually you will. When you get older, you just, you have a tendency of sitting around, you have a tendency of not moving as much. And so it forces you.

So when you do a movie, you have to get up at 6 in the morning, you have to get to the set, you have to go and prep, you have to go and practice today. The action and all that stuff in the fight scenes. You have to do the rehearsals of the scenes and you work until night, right? Then you go home and you fall in bed tired and then you get up again in the morning.

And remember, the most important thing for your brain is to go and practice and to kind of do challenging things with your brain so you don’t get Alzheimer’s and other kind of diseases like that. So it makes you memorize lines, long scenes, and especially in TV, you do six to eight or ten pages a day.

THEO VON: How does keeping your brain active.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And then I play chess on the side while I’m waiting for the scenes and orders to just keep always going. So to me, the important thing is because I feel like if you rest, you rust. And so it’s all about movement. It’s all about keep moving and keep moving and keep challenging yourself. Because as soon as we retire, things go south.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I mean, it’s just something that happens.

THEO VON: Especially Alzheimer’s. Especially it’s Alzheimer’s, Schwarzenegger Alzheimer’s. They’re almost seem like they would be neighbor. I’m saying no judgment or anything, but it almost seems like that would be the one to look for you because your same letters, some of the same letters even.

Heart Health and Staying Ahead

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I have enough with my heart problems. So, I mean, I don’t have to worry about another problem forever. For the last 25 years, that heart. Open heart surgery three times and all that kind of stuff, and valve replacements and all that stuff is a congenital thing for my mother. She had it from her mother and all that stuff. And so I have to deal with that all the time. But everything is good because I train every day and I exercise and I watch what they eat, which is watch the food and then eat it.

THEO VON: Did you ever have a stroke? And you just kind of, you’re like, I’ve kind of had that before. I can get through the rest of the day.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, none of that.

THEO VON: I’m talking about, though. Do you ever have, because sometimes you’ll get a pain or something. You’re like, I think I’m okay. Did you ever have, I’m assuming if you had a life, a lifetime of having heart issues, that you would start to be like.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, it was never. I always was kind of in front of the situation. So that means that I remember when I took my mother to the hospital here, when she was here visiting, she always said I had an episode. And I took her to UCLA. That’s when we found out that she had a valve problem. And the doctor then said to me, he says, “Make sure that you also check yourself,” he says, “because this is something. There’s a genetic thing.”

THEO VON: So it’s almost like a gift that she got to be here and you got to go through that with her.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly. So I, from that point on, always went with the doctor. And the doctor said to me, he says, “Well, you have, at one point he said, you have a problem with your valve.” And you don’t have to do anything now. But as soon as we see it going down, we want to catch it before it goes down, because otherwise it affects the heart itself and all of that.

So the bottom line is I stayed on top of it. So when I got my surgery, open heart surgery, I went in there because I made an appointment. So there was no episode, there was no stroke, there was no heart attack or anything. Never had any of those kind of things. So I always was ahead of the game.

THEO VON: Was it scary when they put you under? Were you kind of scared? Did you make sure it was the best guy doing it, Arnold?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Of course it’s important.

THEO VON: Did you look him in the eyes and take him off side, say, “Let’s make sure we do it good”?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, I didn’t have to do that. I think I would do that for sure. I knew this guy’s history. Dr. Stones was his name that did the first surgery, first surgeries, and he was the top of the top. So there’s no doubts about it.

Legacy and Making the World Better

THEO VON: When you’ve had such a, you’ve had a very blessed and interesting life, right? It’s been, you’ve had it. So, at what point you’re probably, I would, I think it’s fair to say you’re probably in the second half of your life. At what point do you, dudes kind of go like goals turn into legacy, if in your mind at all, if it does. And I don’t mean that to be an uncomfortable question. I’m just, does your brain start to adjust where these are my goals? And then, okay, this is a legacy that I want to leave. Does that make any sense or no?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I think it is always important to think about the idea of that we should leave the world a better place than we inherited it. And so my whole life was always about, okay, how can I make this a better world of the knowledge that I have. So, for instance, in fitness, in bodybuilding, I went around the world to promote the idea of weightlifting and weight training and resistance training.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Made it then popular. Right. Because we had to figure out a way of penetrating through the general public that thought that bodybuilding is just flexing your muscles on stage, but they didn’t realize that bodybuilding is something that you just get a healthy and stronger body for. Whatever you do, you maybe need it for tennis, you maybe need it for your bicycling, you maybe needed for your whatever sport, like UFC fighters that work.

THEO VON: Oh, the first time I heard of fitness was through you.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, through you. But I mean, that was the idea is I wanted to not just lift myself up, but I wanted to lift the rest of the bodybuilding movement up. And so it was always something. So now, of course, 50 years later, there’s a gymnasium in every hotel in the world. There is a gymnasium or weight room in every kind of a military installation or base.

THEO VON: There are those guys we saw there doing those curls with the cement. There’s everything.

Fitness Movement and Economic Impact

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly. People are lifting weights everywhere. Every high school, every college, every sports team, everyone has weight rooms. This is where we are now. So this is why I felt really proud of that, that we were able, with the help of Jane Fonda and other kind of characters that were helping women with the fitness movement. And so we really elevated the fitness sport to something really, also a huge economic contribution that it made.

So to me, that’s important. When I became governor, I wanted to make sure that we have health care for everybody. I want to make sure that we have a cleaner environment, that we fight pollution, and to pass laws to reduce the pollution in California by 25% and all that. So I continued on creating an environmental organization and to have our World Summit in Vienna every year where all the environmentalists come together and talk about how do we go and fight pollution and all this stuff. We have one coming up in 14 days now again.

After School Programs Initiative

And so it’s always after school programs. For instance, when I realized that our kids, 70% of the kids come from a home where both of the parents are working. So there’s no way they’re picking them up after three o’clock from the school.

THEO VON: Right.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So I saw these kids standing around after school and not doing anything. So then I found out this is the danger zone for kids between three and six o’clock because there’s no supervision. So they get involved with drugs, with gangs, with violence, with alcohol, teenage pregnancy. This cost the community a lot of money. Let’s do something about it. Everyone was complaining about it, but they weren’t doing anything about it.

So I stepped out and I started the after school programs and it has been a huge hit. We have raised over the last 30 years, a billion dollars we raised.

THEO VON: Oh, really? How many?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: All over the country. We have been to millions and millions of kids. We have helped with after school programs and with great success rates and all of this stuff. So to me it’s all about how can I make this a better world.

THEO VON: So I see what you’re saying. So you feel like a lot of your legacy’s kind of been lived along the way.

The Immigrant Experience

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly. It’s not like I want, this should be my legacy. I don’t think that way. But I think about, I want to improve the world, especially now. But I mean, think about it. I’m an immigrant. I’m an immigrant that came over here and got every opportunity in the world because of America.

THEO VON: Right.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: America gave me everything. They gave me the money that I have made, the career in bodybuilding, the career in acting, the wonderful family. All of that stuff is because of America. So to me, it’s a natural thing that I give something back. Hey, man, America, you’re one of the…

THEO VON: Most jacked immigrants too that we’ve ever had. Probably, I think, for sure.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I hope so.

THEO VON: Yeah, you do. And you’re competitive about it. I love that. I can feel how competitive you are. And that’s great. You have to be competitive. Because also America is a platform for, if you are competitive and if you choose to apply yourself, that you can reach some of your dreams and goals and aspirations.

The American Dream Today

Do you think that it’s still possible? You’ve had this, you’ve gotten to live in America for a while now and have a good breadth of understanding here. You’ve gotten to work in politics. Do you think the American dream is still possible or do you think there’s things happening these days that are where we’re not helping that along?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I can tell you I didn’t study this issue, right. So I couldn’t really give you facts and figures. But what I can tell you is no matter where I go in the world today, people come up to me and say, “Arnold, can you please help me get to America?” So that never has changed. It doesn’t matter to immigrants. People that want to come here, they don’t know what the political situation is. They don’t care if the Democrat is in power or Republican is in power, what the Senate says, what the Congress says, what the governor said. Nothing. They just want to come over here. They want to get a shot. So this is what it is and you have to do it the legal way. So that is the key thing to me, to do it the legal way.

Anyway, the bottom line is I think the opportunities are there. When I go down to Gold’s Gym, I see this guy from Africa that was competing in my bodybuilding shows in the Arnold Classic and was in one of the top three. Then he became a personal trainer. He’s charging $200 an hour. He’s driving up one day with his blue Bentley, the next day he’s driving up with his red Ferrari. And I mean this is a guy from Africa that came over here with nothing. So this is a young kid, maybe 35 or 40 years old and look at what he does.

So there’s trainers down there that are from different countries. There’s people, if you’re willing to work. That’s why I always say to people, “Work your ass off.” Don’t ever come, this is my big advice to immigrants. I said don’t ever come over here to just use this country. Give something back. Think about, do you want to work your ass off here? You want to educate yourself here, you want to contribute to America here? That’s what you want to do. Because the very fact that you’re allowed to come over here, you should have that mentality of wanting to give something back. That’s the bottom line.

Philosophy of Giving Back

THEO VON: Amen, man. And I think that goes to it. Even as you’re saying that Arnold, it’s making me think about even relationships that I’m in or business situations, I should think of most things that way. Let me give something to this, right? Whatever this is. If this is a relationship with a spouse or a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a, if it’s a team that I’m on or just a commitment I have. I’m going to spend an hour with my son or my mom to do something. Let me give something to this, right? Let me not just take even this moment for granted. Whatever it is, let me be here and be present and apply myself, right? So that we create something that, so I’m honoring the fact that I even have this moment in time.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes.

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And let me tell you something, that as soon as people realize that they’re not self made, that there were a lot of people involved in where you are today, a lot of people, you couldn’t operate without the engineer, you could not operate without the deal that you got to do this and all this kind of stuff. You have to recognize that because when you recognize that you’re not self made, that people have helped you, that is what makes you think, click and say, “I got to now help other people. I have the responsibility to help other people.”

And then you realize how much joy it brings you when you see that you have an impact and you can help other people. That’s why we have the Pump Cup and that’s why we do the Arnold Classic and the promotion of bodybuilding and environmental stuff and the after school programs. I mean, dude, go to one of these after school program conventions and to hear the kids’ stories, it just makes you feel so good that you did that, that you raised the money. We have poker tournaments at my house, maybe raise 7, 8 million dollars sometimes. And then we put this right into the after school programs.

So this is where the action is and you can do all of that because, as I always say, the day is 24 hours and I talk at great length in my book “Be Useful.” I talk about all of those kind of principles of giving back and having a vision and don’t listen to the naysayers and all those kind of things.

Mentors and Inspiration

THEO VON: Who do you go to for your inspiration? Do you have a coach or a mentor over the years? Have you had, you go to Tony Robbins, do you hire some of these guys who are really good at this type of stuff to help you in certain speed bumps in your life?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I would say that I have always had mentors. The Weiders helped me and I looked up to them. Reg Park in bodybuilding that I looked up to. Then later on was Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California, then became president and Nixon, people I looked up to, or George Shultz who was Secretary of State under Reagan, that then became my mentor when I became governor and told me about how to work together with Democrats and Republicans and not just “it’s my way or the highway.”

THEO VON: Did you get to meet Reagan?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, many times.

THEO VON: Oh really?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah.

THEO VON: Wow. What was he like?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I was at the White House. I was invited to state dinners there and everything like that.

THEO VON: They have good food over there. Good food over there, huh?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh yeah, yeah. They know how to cook. Hell yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But there’s, and then also Nixon, I mean I was down at the Nixon Library, I remember in the early 90s and that’s when Nixon just, without telling me, called me up on stage and wanted me to give a speech. So I told him how I became a Nixon fan and when I came over here to this country and all that stuff, he loved it. He said to me, “You should become governor of California.” It was really great. So he was one of the guys.

THEO VON: That always pushed about right there.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, exactly.

Supporting the Troops

THEO VON: I just got back, I just did a show in Qatar.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh, you did?

THEO VON: It was pretty cool.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah.

THEO VON: I happened to just be over there. Trump was over there speaking the same day. But we just did a show for the troops.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh, yeah, exactly. This is a great thing that you do.

THEO VON: It was awesome.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I tell you, there’s nothing that they appreciate more than to go there and schmooze with them, take photographs with them or tell them some jokes.

THEO VON: Yes.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I remember I did it with Jay Leno.

THEO VON: It was hit or miss. There we are right there.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh, man, look at that. Look at that team.

THEO VON: A couple Ku Klux sandsmen. That’s a joke I made. Pretty good joke. I think it’s good.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. When you do that, do you do that often?

THEO VON: I did it for a long time and then I’ve taken a break. Yeah, I did it for a long time and then I’ve taken a break recently. But this really reignited me on it. I was actually texting a couple friends of mine and saying, let’s go do some just even close bases that are close to us in America. Just whatever we can. Let’s start to do it a little bit more. And yeah, I think we’re going to start to do it more. So I’m really excited about that. I feel really lucky. I mean, my whole job is freedom of speech, right. So it’s like if people aren’t protecting that, you can’t even be a comedian in some countries.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Of course not. Yeah. No, I think it’s a great idea. And of course, I remember that in, when I was in my height, in my bodybuilding days, I was invited to go on the aircraft carrier Norfolk, Virginia, and to go and train with the sailors. And to show them how to exercise and all that stuff. It was fantastic. I was up there. And I said, ever since then, I really found it really enjoyable to go if it’s down here near San Diego, to Pendleton or any of those military bases, or if I go to Seoul, South Korea or Japan or anywhere I go, Middle East. I was in Kuwait visiting them.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It’s fun over there, working out with them. It’s like three, four in the morning when I work out.

THEO VON: They don’t give a sh*t, I’ll tell you that.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I tell you that there’s some really serious lifters there.

Balancing Work and Family Life

THEO VON: But they do not want to see me do anything. I usually stand on the side and just drink. I’ll have a little bit of a protein shake. But what about, was it hard with your whole life, was it tough to be a good husband or be a good dad? Like, if so much of your job takes your work side of you?

Because I noticed for me, I’m not married yet. I would like to find a wife, but it’s hard for me to even find time, you know? Were there moments where, because your life gets so big, right? And you’ve had a big life. I mean, there’s you, Arnold, and then the other guy, Hey Arnold. He’s a drawing, I think, right? So you’re the only, the name is yours really, right. Does it ever get hard to be a parent or something because of how big your life is?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Let me tell you something. Everything that you want to do that is really good and you want to go all out, it’s difficult. It’s challenging. But I was very fortunate because I married a woman that understood that I have to work, and she didn’t complain about it.

So we got together and I understood that right away because of the family. She came from the Kennedy family, right. So Maria Shriver was like, she understood that all of her…

THEO VON: Bobby Kennedy. She related.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Bobby Kennedy, yeah. So if it is, you know, John F. Kennedy, if it was Bobby Kennedy Senior, you know, when he ran for president, I mean, all her father ran for president and for vice president and all of this. So she was used to that. Everyone has to go out and work.

THEO VON: The energy.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: They left the house in the morning and they came back late at night. Or like, for instance, then later on, you know, was traveling around the world for Special Olympics. And her mother was also a workaholic, and so she understood that.

And so when I was going on location, when we had kids, she would go and she would stop her job in New York, the NBC job that she was hosting the morning news, and she would stay home. She would stay home and she would stay with the kids. And so this is why we have four terrific kids that we created together. And Patrick, of course, we’re very proud of him.

THEO VON: Oh yeah. I love his new show, the Show. So he did a great job.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: He did a fantastic job. And, you know, Catherine is fantastic and writes books and all this stuff.

THEO VON: And who are your other two children?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Christina and Christopher.

THEO VON: And Christopher.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And Christopher is also in show business. He’s working for a production company. He reads more scripts than I ever read in my whole life. But, I mean, so it’s really great to see all the kids. Then I have one son outside the marriage, which is Joseph. And Joseph is also doing terrific in real estate.

The Importance of Being a Participative Father

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So it’s a key thing to really concentrate on being a participative father when you have kids, because you got to go. They want to see you ski. When you go up and say, “Let’s go skiing,” they don’t want you to just send them up in the mountains in the cold weather where they freeze their butt off. They want to see you sitting on the chairlift, go up with the skis and ski with them. So that’s what I did.

Of course, they hated it when they were kids. They said, “Oh, daddy, let’s go in. I want to get a hot chocolate.” I said, “There is no hot chocolate there skiing. This is ski mountain, not a hot chocolate mountain. What’s the matter with you kids?”

And then they were crying on the chair, and then we were going up there on the chairlift, and we were skiing down and skiing down for three, four hours. And then we had the hot chocolate, the lunch and all this stuff.

And now when they go up to Sundance and go skiing, they stop me and they say, “Dad, I just want you to know how much I appreciate that you made us ski, because now I ski fantastic. I can go down on any run.”

THEO VON: And they love you when they do it.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Because that’s what I always tell my friends. Don’t just go and take pictures of them skiing. No, you put the skis on, you with the ski boots on, and you go and do it. And same with playing soccer. I was playing soccer with my son. And you got to go and participate in all of this stuff. And so this is what I believed in. I went to all the games with my wife.

THEO VON: Yeah, my gosh. No. But you know what? I just gather from some of your things is just the application of self, right. And that you have to go get it. You have to go do this, right. Do you know Bobby pretty good? Bobby Kennedy is a friend of mine.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah.

THEO VON: Yeah.

Bobby Kennedy and Environmental Leadership

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Bobby, I mean, let me tell you something about Bobby. I mean, he’s a great guy.

THEO VON: Oh, he’s one of my favorite. He’s one of my favorite guys.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you.

THEO VON: I know him from recovery. We go to recovery meetings together.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: But think about this for a second. I’m running for governor in 2003, and then all of a sudden, I get a phone call from Bobby, who I knew very well, and Bobby and Joe Kennedy, his brother, and all the brothers. And they were always really kind of nice to me and kind and inclusive and stuff like that.

THEO VON: Well, you’re the damn Terminator. They got to be at least…

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, no. But I mean, you know, some people are kind of like, “Oh, who is this new guy coming into the family?” Type of thing.

THEO VON: Oh, I see. Especially their family, because it’s a prestigious thing.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: That’s right, yeah. So, but they were really nice. So Bobby calls me and he says, “Arnold, you’re Republican. Republicans are not known for their environmental record.” He says, “I’m an environmentalist. I’m the head of the River Keepers and all that stuff.”

And he says, “I have a guy that you should have on your team that can educate you, really, about the environment.” I said, “Think about it. It’s really nice.” I said, “Who is it?” Terry Tamminen. He says, “Let me send him over to your office.”

He sent over Terry Tamminen, and we hit it off right away really well. And the next thing I know is we’re working together. He’s part of the team. And then when I became governor, and I think that contributed to me becoming governor because of this whole idea that I want to be environmentally friendly, I want to reduce greenhouse gases, I want to get the renewable energy up in California and all of this stuff.

So I become governor, Terry Tamminen becomes the head of the EPA and all of this. But this all happened, my knowledge about the environment, and all this happened because of Bobby Kennedy. So that’s the kind of a guy he is. I mean, he didn’t say, “Oh, you’re Republican. I’m going to campaign against you.” No, he was 100% on board. He wanted to wish me good luck, and he did wish me good luck, and he wanted me to win, not because I’m a Republican. He just felt like, “Oh, I like Arnold. I want the good guy to win, no matter what side he’s on.”

THEO VON: I want the good guy to win, no matter what side he’s on.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly. So that’s the kind of a guy Bobby is, you know, so I think the world of him.

THEO VON: Yeah, he’s cool. We had him on the podcast when everybody was thinking he was kind of crazy during the pandemic and stuff and he was concerned about just people’s health and wellbeing with vaccines and stuff. We had him on and, but yeah, I’ve always known him to be just a neat guy, you know, he’s my friend.

Yeah, I’m excited for him. I’m curious to see what it’s like once you get into office. How can you still keep your beliefs or not, or do things get heavily compromised?

The Art of Political Compromise

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Do you feel like it is compromised? You have to compromise because the whole world doesn’t think exactly like you. Remember what Eisenhower said? Eisenhower said that politics is like the road, the left and the right is the gutter and the center is drivable. And that’s exactly the way it is in politics.

You have to understand that there’s a sweet spot, you know, like in golf to hit the sweet spot, in tennis to hit the sweet spot. There’s a sweet spot to find exactly so you can get a deal made and you can move things forward. Not exactly your way.

I mean, I remember with the infrastructure, I wanted to build $100 billion worth of infrastructure, but they only agreed on around $60 billion. So it didn’t get in my way with the financial situation. I wanted to wipe out the deficit and I was not able to do that with all these Democrats around. They love to spend money, so I was stuck with it.

But the fact of it is we could improve the situation. And I was able to work together with the Democrats on environmental issues and infrastructure issues and so many other healthcare issues, so many other issues, education and all of this stuff. And we did really have a great time up there being governor of the state of California.

THEO VON: But it’s about compromise. I mean, you’ve said before that you can’t do everything, you can’t do it all by yourself.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: It’s not a dictatorship, you know, so you have two parties. Even within your own party, they think differently. So that’s, you have to face reality. The trick is just to not hate the other side because they think differently. It’s just kind of like figuring out how can we work together and how can we do something that’s really good for the people. That’s the bottom line.

THEO VON: That’s the bottom line. Do you think we’ll ever have a Republican governor again in California?

Path to the Governorship

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, you know, if someone has a good program and if someone is organic, I mean, with me it was possible because I had a great mentor, number one, which was Pete Wilson, who was a governor of California for two terms. And he helped me.

THEO VON: Pete Wilson?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, Pete Wilson, yeah. And he helped me, you know, with the race a lot. And then I also was organic because, you know, people saw that I did not come out of nowhere where I just went from acting to politics.

I mean, I was working with Special Olympics for decades, going around the world to help Special Olympics and to get recognition for them and to be able to get jobs and to have, you know, be able to live anywhere they want and to get into sports, Special Olympics sports programs, powerlifting and all this. So I was always fighting for equality, including in South Africa with Nelson Mandela. We were there together fighting for Special Olympics. So the people in California saw all of that.

THEO VON: Right?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And also me starting the after school programs and having an initiative that I went to the people a year before in 2002, and the people voted 57% in favor of that initiative for after school programs. So I was already in there and I was working with President Bush, being the chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. So I was already giving back and giving back and giving back.

So when I said, “Now I’m not interested anymore in just doing another movie. I’m more interested in getting the state of California back on its feet,” because we had blackouts, huge deficits. You know, illegals were getting driver’s licenses. There was all kinds of crazy stuff that was going on here.

And I said to myself, you know, the Indian gaming, they didn’t pay taxes and they did all the gaming and made billions of dollars and their workers compensation costs were high and people were moving out with their businesses from California. I said, “I will bring California back.”

No matter how many people were campaigning for Gray Davis, who was governor then, you know, Clinton came out and campaigned for him. Gore came out, John Kerry came out, Al Sharpton, all of those guys came out to campaign for him. I said to the Bushes, “No, no, don’t come out. I don’t need that. It’s between me and the voters.”

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And so I convinced the California people and that’s how I became governor. That’s why I got a huge majority of votes. But it was organic. So many of the guys come from real estate, and they say, “Well, I want to be governor. I have the money now and I want it.” People don’t buy in on that stuff.

THEO VON: Right. You can’t just buy it. Bloomberg tried to do it a few years ago. It didn’t work.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah, you have to be real, and you have to be able to have a vision. Remember, again, it goes back to the book, “Be Useful.” You have rule number one is you have to have a clear vision. You can’t just say, “I want to be governor.” What is your vision? If someone sits down and said, “What is your vision of your California?”

THEO VON: Right.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: You remember Teddy Kennedy, the problem he had when they asked him. Roger Mudd asked him when he announced to run for president, “Do you want to be president?” Teddy couldn’t answer it. So he was like, “Well, my mother Rose, she always taught us to give something back.” It didn’t work. People didn’t buy it.

And even though he was a great public servant, they did a great job, but he couldn’t sell it. So you have to come out of the gate and really be very forceful and know and let the people know. I know what I want to do, and I’m going to fight for you. Fight for me. I don’t want to be a political hack. I don’t want to be just another Republican that wins the thing. No, I want to fight for you. So that was the whole theme of the campaign.

Missing Billions and Government Accountability

THEO VON: They just had where they found like 24 billion dollars that was supposed to be earmarked for homeless help in California that went missing. How does money go missing once you’re in these places, do you think? Is it just people? What does it say? Newsom confronted at press conference about 24 billion spent on tackling homelessness.

How does stuff like that, and it didn’t have to be this specifically, but once you’re in office and you see these huge amounts of money, how does stuff like that just go by the wayside where it gets lost or missing? Hypothetically, do you think?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, let me just say, none of those politicians, I would want to run my company. None of those companies, none of this foundation. I would like to hand over my checkbook, my bank account, and say, “You manage it now.”

THEO VON: Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Right. So that’s where it starts. So they’re none of that. They’re not that smart when it comes to solving problems. And so I can totally understand how 24 billion dollars is missing because it’s wasted. They cannot even show it. They cannot even have any accountability.

But this has been going on for 20 years now. We’re not talking about just for the last few years. This has been going on and on. Everyone has been complaining about the homeless, but they don’t create, they don’t really tell you that this was created by the politicians, the homelessness.

THEO VON: Did Reagan create it though?

The Real Cause of California’s Homelessness Crisis

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, no, it was created by having people go and say, “We don’t want no growth in California.” So when you have, when I came over, it was 19, 20 million people in California. Well, if you had six lane highways, so now when you go to 40 million people, you would know mathematically. Now you need 12 lane highways, meaning six lanes. And then on top of it you build another freeway. So that you don’t have traffic congestion. But that’s not what they did.

THEO VON: Right.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Then when you have to, when you go from 20 to 40 million people, then you need twice as many houses. Yeah, you need twice as many apartment buildings. You need twice as much of everything, schools and everything. And they didn’t. They kept in because the environmentalists thought that if we say no growth then no one will come.

But in the meantime, no one gives a f* about that. They come anyway and then they somehow then live three people in one apartment or five people in one apartment or sometimes, workers did sometimes live 10 people in.

THEO VON: Oh yeah, they’ll really be laying on each other’s backs then.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: What happens now is when you have a limited amount of housing now, the prices rise. So now when the prices go up, the value of the apartment building goes up. So the unit that used to cost $600 now cost $3,000 a month. But the salaries, the wages didn’t go up accordingly.

So now you have people that are economically homeless. They cannot afford paying for their rent anymore. So this is created by the politicians. And now remember what Einstein said, the people that created the problem cannot solve it. So they are doing the same thing over which is another thing Einstein said, if you try to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, that’s the definition of insanity.

THEO VON: And it feels like that’s what we’re living.

Taking Action on Veteran Homelessness

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So this is what we’re dealing with here. So we have, the city here is not able to manage this whole thing. On the state level, we are not able to manage this whole thing. So it’s like I had to go. I mean, we had the homeless veterans camping out in front of the Veterans Administration up there in Westwood.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, right over there.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: 405 and Santa Monica, right in front of the, for in Wilshire years. They’re camping out there and no one is helping them. So I went and I started making a deal and I said, “Can we not put inside some houses, little houses?” They said, “Yes.” And we started. I donated the money and we started building houses.

And since then, there’s now hundreds of houses inside the Veterans Administration. The homeless are gone because they wanted to help the Veterans Administration. But it took a while and the city kept saying, “Oh, it is too difficult to do, and this is really challenging to do.” I said, “Watch that.” Within two months, we had those houses there and we created homes for 25 people so they could move in just to show to the city it can be done.

THEO VON: Amen.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Don’t give me this it can’t be done. Anything can be done. If there’s a will, do it with the whole thing.

The American Dream Still Lives

THEO VON: Amen. I have two quick questions for you, just about people. Thank you so much for your time today, Arnold. Thanks for the inspiration. I feel like this has been an inspirational conversation for me. You never know what certain conversations are going to be like. Thanks for your contributions to entertainment and to just, it’s evident that you are the American dream. And you make me feel like it is still possible, which I don’t know if I even felt like that when I started this conversation. Did you ever get to meet Michael Landon before?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, you didn’t?

THEO VON: I love him. He was one of my favorites. And did you ever get to meet Michael Jackson before?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah.

THEO VON: What was he like? Do you have any good, like a cool story about him?

Memories of Michael Jackson

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Really nice man. I mean, he was very nice. He came to my trailer several times when I was filming over there in Universal lot, the studio. And then we had also dinner several times. I remember one time with Katzenberg, and maybe it was even Katzenberg that organized it. I cannot remember anymore. But I mean, yeah, I mean, he was a wonderful, wonderful guy.

THEO VON: Would he tell stories and stuff like regular people? Because they always make him seem so quiet.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: No, no, he’s quiet. And it could be because he wanted to protect his voice. And he was odd. Yeah, no two ways about that. But he was very, very nice and very interesting and fascinated about different things. And he was, many times, it felt like you’re talking to a child.

THEO VON: Oh, I could see that for sure.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: He would shift into this thing with things that children are really into. Kind of like rides and Disney or something like that that he would talk about. That really interested him. And so it was kind of an interesting thing. But you can see the way he grew up and with the amount of fame that he had, how difficult it must have been for him to handle all that.

THEO VON: Oh, I can’t even.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: To be this genius of a musician, I mean, it’s unbelievable. And it’s sad that he got addicted to this kind of sleeping thing.

THEO VON: Propofol, I think, or something.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. And then took too much of it and passed away. It was a huge loss for the world because he was just such a fantastic entertainer.

THEO VON: Yeah. I’ll see his children every now and then. I cross paths with his daughter every once in a while. Anything else that you want to show? I think it’s been a good conversation. Do you guys feel like that?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I think that the key thing is that we pump up, while you’re airing this interview that you show every 10 minutes, a trailer of FUBAR.

THEO VON: Okay.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And then while I’m talking, you show a little bit of clips again.

THEO VON: A little bit of that.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Let me help you with the editing. Okay.

THEO VON: Hey, I promise you this. I will certainly support it. And I’ll watch some more of it. I’m going to get some of my friends to watch it. We grew up watching your movies. The lady with the three breasts. Remember that one?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah.

THEO VON: God. Oh, yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: From Total Recall. Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.

THEO VON: I recall those a lot, brother. Yeah. And I totaled them up. Three every time. But thank you for that. That was the first breast I was ever allowed to see a little bit. But thank you so much, man.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Absolutely. It was great. And remember, I hope this is not the last time. Do it again sometimes.

THEO VON: Oh, no. I would love to do this again. Yeah.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: That was fun. I really enjoyed that.

Pride in His Children

THEO VON: Thank you so much. One more. Just say something nice about each one of your children so one day they’ll be able to see this really fast.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Whoa. I’m proud of all my children. I’m very proud of Katherine, who has three kids now herself and was writing books. And she’s the greatest mother. She’s just like her mother Maria. That was a really fantastic mother, and I’m very proud of her.

I’m proud of Christina, who is also into producing and doing TV shows, documentaries and all that.

THEO VON: Here in Los Angeles.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. And then maybe, of course, Patrick Schwarzenegger.

THEO VON: Just saw his new show.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: He’s so good. He’s doing really well. I’m so happy that his acting career is taking off. This is something that he really was very passionate about always. Christopher is doing a great job. I mean, he just lost 150 pounds.

THEO VON: No way.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. So he used to weigh 350. He’s now down like 210 or something like that.

THEO VON: Oh, he must be feeling so much healthier, huh?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: He feels really great. Works at the Gold’s Gym every day. And I know that’s, I’m really proud of him.

THEO VON: You get to see him there sometimes.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: You see him all the time.

THEO VON: Oh, it’s awesome.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: And then, Joseph is a fantastic human being. He’s in the real estate, he’s into acting, and he’s going into training. He works out all the time. So I’m really proud of all of them. And none of them is in the drugs. None of them is the alcohol and any of these things. So it’s really fantastic to see them. And even, and I have also a nephew here. I mean, that is a really fantastic. Patrick Knapp.

THEO VON: Patrick Knapp is.

Family and Legacy

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Entertainment. He’s my entertainment lawyer. I mean, so I brought him over from Austria because my brother passed away. So this is Patrick, right?

THEO VON: This is your brother’s son?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, my brother’s son.

THEO VON: No way.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: So he was three years old when my brother passed away. And then he went to school over there and everything. Then they brought him over to also go Santa Monica College, go to UCLA, go to Hastings Law School.

THEO VON: That’s your path. Santa Monica, UCLA.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah.

THEO VON: Does he remind you of your brother?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh yeah, yeah. He reminds me a lot of my brother. Yeah.

THEO VON: That’s awesome. I’ll bet your brother’s super proud of you, man. And thank you so much, Arnold, for just all your contributions and for your time today.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: My pleasure.

THEO VON: If you guys go watch FUBAR.

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