The evening starts shambolically. Technical problems hold
things up, though I suspect the technicalities are more to do with
Arnold Schwarzenegger not being here on time. Half an hour late, and
we’re off. “A big welcome to Jonathan Ross,” the host Rebecca Cooper
says to warm applause.
But Ross fails to materialise. “Just a short delay because Jonathan Ross has been held up. We shouldn’t be too long at all.” The room is hot and stuffy, the atmosphere not entirely relaxed. “Get me out of this hole,” shouts an audience member, paraphrasing Schwarzenegger in Predator. Not only has Arnie killed more people than any other mainstream action hero (509 and counting), he’s also patented more one-liners than any other movie star.
“Get to the Chopper,” heckles another man. Another quote from Predator, which loosely translates as let’s get this show under way. Expectation is high. The audience is full of Schwarzenegger obsessives – bull-necked men who worked their bodies and dreamed the Arnie dream but never quite realised it.
A three-minute montage is shown – Arnie as Mr Universe, Arnie as the Terminator, Arnie as the Governor. “This story you know, so are you ready for the story you don’t?” teases Schwarzenegger’s voiceover before he walks on to the stage. You bet, especially at these prices. The cheapest tickets are £126.50, while for £2,100 you not only get to meet and greet him, you also have your picture taken with him (“Your photoshoot should take no longer than 15 seconds,” VVIPs are forewarned). For 10 grand you could perhaps get a piggyback home.
Finally Schwarzenegger arrives, his body tightly packed into a navy blue suit. “I said I’d be back,” he says, the most famous one-liner of all. The crowd roars. At 67, he’s looking good, California-style – face barely lined, full head of brownish hair, pearly teeth that could devour the world.
Ross asks his first question and Arnie delivers a 20-minute motivational masterclass. He was told he’d never make it as a bodybuilder (his bullying father wanted him to marry any Austrian girl called Heidi and be a policeman) but he won Mr Universe five times. Hollywood producers told him he’d never make it in the movies (he spoke robotic English and was physically huge at a time when little fellas like Dustin Hoffman and Woody Allen were all the rage) but he became the biggest action hero ever. He was told he’d never make it in politics (who would vote for an excessively muscled movie star with a weird accent?) and he became governor of California, running the eighth biggest economy in the world. What’s more, he did it as a Republican in a traditionally Democrat state.
Schwarzenegger’s story really is remarkable. And he tells it well. Every single victory is hard won.
So there’s the disapproving father who finally praises him two months before he dies; the mother who weeps and calls in the doctor because of the pictures of oily muscle men on her son’s walls, only to be reassured that it is all perfectly normal and heterosexual; the fierce rivalry with Sly Stallone (“I hated the son of a bitch”) that ends with them waltzing together in Cannes happily reconciled by Mammon as they open Planet Hollywood together.
This is the American dream writ large. Very large. And this is the message most of the audience have come to hear: chase that rainbow, dream the impossible, don’t be afraid of failure, stay hungry, ignore the naysayers, when you fall pick yourself up, work your butt off, and you too can earn squillions and become a global hero.
You could imagine many of the people here putting Arnie’s mantra on a loop and playing it 24/7. They lap it up. But there are problems with the evening, executive-produced by hairdresser-turned-impresario Rocco Buonvino. First, the venue is horrible – a hotel suite with chairs set out in rows as long as a runway. It’s hard enough to see Schwarzenegger from a central seat, never mind the outskirts.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that despite the promise of the unseen, uncensored Arnie, both Ross and Schwarzenegger are on auto-pilot. There is not an uncomfortable moment for either interviewer or interviewee. Ross touches on the star’s troubled private life for about 10 seconds, and then only euphemistically (Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria Shriver divorced after Shriver discovered he had secretly fathered a child with their maid). Schwarzenegger admits he was disappointed with himself (“One of my biggest failings”), but quickly magics it into another triumph in which hard work and devotion to the children win the day.
For once, we could do with hearing more from Ross – a bit less reverence, a little more cheek and a whole lot more nosiness. Not surprisingly, Schwarzenegger isn’t big on self-doubt or irony. He talks about how his father never understood his bodybuilding training. “He said: ‘If you want to get strong, why don’t you get an axe and chop down some wood, and deliver it to people’s homes? That way you do some good. This way you’re doing it for yourself. I don’t get it. Are you so in love with yourself?’” It was the perfect moment for Ross to ask whether his father had a point. You never know, Schwarzenegger might have agreed.
But Ross fails to materialise. “Just a short delay because Jonathan Ross has been held up. We shouldn’t be too long at all.” The room is hot and stuffy, the atmosphere not entirely relaxed. “Get me out of this hole,” shouts an audience member, paraphrasing Schwarzenegger in Predator. Not only has Arnie killed more people than any other mainstream action hero (509 and counting), he’s also patented more one-liners than any other movie star.
“Get to the Chopper,” heckles another man. Another quote from Predator, which loosely translates as let’s get this show under way. Expectation is high. The audience is full of Schwarzenegger obsessives – bull-necked men who worked their bodies and dreamed the Arnie dream but never quite realised it.
A three-minute montage is shown – Arnie as Mr Universe, Arnie as the Terminator, Arnie as the Governor. “This story you know, so are you ready for the story you don’t?” teases Schwarzenegger’s voiceover before he walks on to the stage. You bet, especially at these prices. The cheapest tickets are £126.50, while for £2,100 you not only get to meet and greet him, you also have your picture taken with him (“Your photoshoot should take no longer than 15 seconds,” VVIPs are forewarned). For 10 grand you could perhaps get a piggyback home.
Finally Schwarzenegger arrives, his body tightly packed into a navy blue suit. “I said I’d be back,” he says, the most famous one-liner of all. The crowd roars. At 67, he’s looking good, California-style – face barely lined, full head of brownish hair, pearly teeth that could devour the world.
Ross asks his first question and Arnie delivers a 20-minute motivational masterclass. He was told he’d never make it as a bodybuilder (his bullying father wanted him to marry any Austrian girl called Heidi and be a policeman) but he won Mr Universe five times. Hollywood producers told him he’d never make it in the movies (he spoke robotic English and was physically huge at a time when little fellas like Dustin Hoffman and Woody Allen were all the rage) but he became the biggest action hero ever. He was told he’d never make it in politics (who would vote for an excessively muscled movie star with a weird accent?) and he became governor of California, running the eighth biggest economy in the world. What’s more, he did it as a Republican in a traditionally Democrat state.
Schwarzenegger’s story really is remarkable. And he tells it well. Every single victory is hard won.
So there’s the disapproving father who finally praises him two months before he dies; the mother who weeps and calls in the doctor because of the pictures of oily muscle men on her son’s walls, only to be reassured that it is all perfectly normal and heterosexual; the fierce rivalry with Sly Stallone (“I hated the son of a bitch”) that ends with them waltzing together in Cannes happily reconciled by Mammon as they open Planet Hollywood together.
This is the American dream writ large. Very large. And this is the message most of the audience have come to hear: chase that rainbow, dream the impossible, don’t be afraid of failure, stay hungry, ignore the naysayers, when you fall pick yourself up, work your butt off, and you too can earn squillions and become a global hero.
You could imagine many of the people here putting Arnie’s mantra on a loop and playing it 24/7. They lap it up. But there are problems with the evening, executive-produced by hairdresser-turned-impresario Rocco Buonvino. First, the venue is horrible – a hotel suite with chairs set out in rows as long as a runway. It’s hard enough to see Schwarzenegger from a central seat, never mind the outskirts.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that despite the promise of the unseen, uncensored Arnie, both Ross and Schwarzenegger are on auto-pilot. There is not an uncomfortable moment for either interviewer or interviewee. Ross touches on the star’s troubled private life for about 10 seconds, and then only euphemistically (Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria Shriver divorced after Shriver discovered he had secretly fathered a child with their maid). Schwarzenegger admits he was disappointed with himself (“One of my biggest failings”), but quickly magics it into another triumph in which hard work and devotion to the children win the day.
For once, we could do with hearing more from Ross – a bit less reverence, a little more cheek and a whole lot more nosiness. Not surprisingly, Schwarzenegger isn’t big on self-doubt or irony. He talks about how his father never understood his bodybuilding training. “He said: ‘If you want to get strong, why don’t you get an axe and chop down some wood, and deliver it to people’s homes? That way you do some good. This way you’re doing it for yourself. I don’t get it. Are you so in love with yourself?’” It was the perfect moment for Ross to ask whether his father had a point. You never know, Schwarzenegger might have agreed.
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