Although Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name was being thrown around for The Terminator early on, the bodybuilder-turned-actor’s reps weren’t sure about him playing a villain and pushed for him to get the part of Kyle Reese. Director James Cameron wasn’t sold on the idea because he felt that if he cast Schwarzenegger in the role, he’d have to find someone even bigger to portray the Terminator.
Cameron then reluctantly met with Schwarzenegger, intending to pick a fight so the whole plan would be dismissed. The two bonded during the meeting, and after seeing Schwarzenegger in person, Cameron realized he would make a great Terminator.
However, Schwarzenegger wasn’t the only actor who was considered for the role. Legend has it that both Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson turned it down before Schwarzenegger got involved. Lance Henriksen, who played Detective Hal Vukovich in the final film, was in the running at one point as well.
If you can believe it, Orion Pictures co-founder Mike Medavoy even suggested O.J. Simpson for the lead in the beginning.
O.J. Simpson Was Once Suggested to Play the Terminator
“That did come out of my mouth,” Medavoy admitted while speaking with Entertainment Weekly in 2014. “At the time, O.J. Simpson had one of those commercials for Hertz where he jumped over a counter and ran to get a rental car,” he continued. “It was all of that athletic stuff, which I thought the Terminator should have.”
Cameron rejected the idea almost immediately, telling the Los Angeles Times in 2019 that he and producer Gale Hurd thought it was “the stupidest thing” they’d ever heard in their lives. “Mind you, this was before O.J. was actually a killer,” he explained in an earlier interview. “We might have reconsidered after he had killed his wife,” Cameron joked. “This was when everybody loved him, and ironically that was part of the problem—he was this likable, goofy, kind of innocent guy.”
Cameron went on to say that he also “wasn’t interested in an African-American man chasing around a white girl with a knife.” For context, Cameron was evidently planning on having the Terminator carry a knife initially.
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