The scene that almost cost Arnold Schwarzenegger his fingers: “I felt this unbelievable pain”
Even though he shot to superstardom at a time when the CGI revolution was years away, Arnold Schwarzenegger was never an action hero who prided himself on doing the majority of his own stunts.
Whereas his great rival Sylvester Stallone was breaking his ribs, falling out of trees, and getting punched so hard his heart reverberated around his chest cavity and almost killed him, the ‘Austrian Oak’ was always aware that the more hair-raising moments in his filmography were better left to the professionals.
Schwarzenegger might have been one of Hollywood’s biggest and highest-paid stars in his pomp, but he was also one of the industry’s savviest operators. A shrewd businessman, the actor always ensured he was getting the best possible deal whenever he signed on for anything, and putting his life on the line was rarely part of the bargain.
The biggest hurdle was finding a stunt double of similar dimensions, seeing as the bodybuilding legend was a big fella. Fortunately, he found one in Peter Kent, who stood in for Schwarzenegger on the first two Terminator movies, Raw Deal, Red Heat, Predator, The Running Man, and many more.
However, Kent wasn’t involved in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which is where he nearly had his hand blown off. That’s not to say Schwarzenegger didn’t put in any of the heavy lifting when he was more than happy to get physical on set, but it’s nonetheless curious that the first entry in the sci-fi franchise where he didn’t have his usual double feature was his closest call.
The sequence where the titular cyborg forcefully liberates the coffin of Sarah Connor from a graveyard and then engages in an explosive shootout with the police was largely shot practically, which may not have been the wisest approach in hindsight after the leading man needed to have his hand looked at by the medical team after a misplaced detonation came close to robbing him of his entire hand.
“The whole casket was loaded up with little explosions that would go off, and the idea was to put one underneath my hand,” he explained to Black Film. “In the middle of the shoot, I felt this unbelievable pain and this explosion going off underneath my finger, and I’m absolutely convinced that if I wouldn’t have had thick leather gloves, my fingers would’ve come off with that.”
On the plus side, Schwarzenegger maintained all five of his fingers in the aftermath, even if his hand was “unbelievably bruised for a long time, and I had to get medical attention for it.” Accidents can always happen on a film shoot, but it would have been a bad look for Terminator 3 if its main attraction had suffered grievous bodily harm, especially when he was rewarded with such a lucrative contract.
