The only actor who intimidated Robert Patrick: “He scared the shit out of me”
One thing about Terminator 2: Judgment Day that people tend to forget, especially about when it was first released, is that not only was it absolutely brilliant, it was also scary as anything, and the sole reason for that was the incredibly effective performance of Robert Patrick as the relentless T-1000, a chap you never want to see running after you in your rear view mirror.
But someone was scary enough to get Patrick himself quivering, who was, perhaps unsurprisingly, James Gandolfini. Almost a decade after Patrick had scared the bejeesus out of cinema goers by asking “Have you seen this boy?” and then stabbing them in the throat with a sharpened piece of his own liquid metal body, he had a small role in season two of The Sopranos, a part that involved him going up against patriarch Tony himself.
Although it might be described as a fight scene, the reality is that Patrick’s character was firmly beaten up by Gandolfini, and it sounds like the experience was just as pants-soiling as you might imagine. The former went on the Talking Sopranos podcast to reveal what filming the scene was like, telling the hosts that not only was Gandolfini hungover on the day, but that for some reason he had been told to provoke the big man in some way before the cameras rolled in order to get a more realistic reaction.
He recalled telling Gandolfini: “You know the scene where you come to get your money, you better bring your f**king A-game”, and Gandolfini retorted with, “Oh, I’ll bring my f**king A-game”. Patrick then recounted the following day’s filming, saying, “(Gandolfini) came in and said, ‘How’s your balls?’ I said, ‘They’re fine’. And he said, ‘I’m hungover, let’s do this f**king scene’, and man, it was one take. We kind of went through what he was going to do. He was going to grab me, and he was going to throw me around, and I’m going to start crying like a little girl. And I got to tell you, he scared the living shit out of me man. I mean, I was so intimidated.”
Nevertheless, despite being terrified, Patrick still loved his short time on the show, describing it as “a fantastic experience”.
After several years out of the limelight, the actor has had something of a career renaissance over the last few years, appearing in the likes of James Gunn’s Peacemaker and the Sylvester Stallone Paramount Plus drama Tulsa King.
Although he has mostly concentrated on TV work for the last decade or so, it is well worth tracking down a little-known horror movie called What Josiah Saw from 2021, in which Patrick plays the menacing, controlling father of a pair of adult siblings who come back to a house full of secrets to mourn their mother.
Made for Shudder, it features a head-spinning twist and plenty of shocks with a superb performance from the man and currently stands at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, well worth a couple of hours of anyone’s time, as long as they like horror and being petrified by Robert Patrick.
If you are a fan of the actor, you’ll also be pleased to know he’ll be part of an ensemble cast in the Andy Garcia-directed Diamond, which also features Bill Murray, Brendan Fraser, and Dustin Hoffman, quite far away from Gandolfini’s fists.
