Arnold Schwarzenegger, then 29, showed his championship form in Pumping Iron, a documentary look at bodybuilders.
In 1977, Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't thinking about running for governor of California. He wasn't even thinking about playing the Terminator, as it turns out.
The then 29-year-old Schwarzenegger was thinking about an acting career, but he was best known as a competitive body builder and star of the documentary Pumping Iron when he was interviewed for the adult magazine Oui by Peter Manso.
The five-page interview was posted last week by the Smoking Gun at www.thesmokinggun.com Schwarzenegger's admissions that he used marijuana and hashish and participated in group sex have received some attention.
Asked about the interview, Schwarzenegger told CNN, "I never lived my life to be a politician. I never lived my life to be the governor of California.
"Obviously, I've made statements that are ludicrous and crazy and outrageous and all those things, because that's the way I always was," he said.
But his comments on how he psyched out his opponents in bodybuilding competitions may be more salient to his current run for office. So, perhaps, is his attempt in 1977 to predict the shape of his future career.
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OUI: This business of feeling like King Kong - is it your act to psych everyone out so they know you're King Kong?
SCHWARZENEGGER: . . . What I do is make them feel great. I tell a guy that he's never looked better, that he looks brilliant, fantastic. "Your deltoids! And how do you get the tan and the proportion? I'm positive that you'll place. . . . You can easily beat this guy and that guy. I'm certain you'll go all the way - to second place."
OUI: Are you serious about being a professional actor?
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, I've been going to acting school and I know that this is what I really want to do. At the moment, I'm looking for the right vehicles, and I pretty much know what I want. Do you know Hemingway's short story The Killers? I'd like to do a remake, play the guy the two mobsters are after - the Swede. I realize there's only one Arnold in the world, that there's never been an Arnold before, and the one thing that won't work on the screen is my being an ass-kicker. If Robert De Niro kills in Taxi Driver, it's perfect, because he's a little guy and people are 100 percent behind him. For me, that isn't the right kind of role, because I'm big and therefore I have to play the opposite kind of guy. When you build a career, you should never imitate anybody. If there's one thing I ought to do, it's the unexpected. Whether it's The Killers or something else, I probably should play the victim.
