A Star Trek Actor Was Forbidden From Joking With Arnold Schwarzenegger In Total Recall

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Paul Verhoeven's 1990 film "Total Recall" was based on Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," and it was famously trapped in development hell for years. According to David Hughes' invaluable book "Tales from Development Hell," the film rights to Dick's story were first purchased way back in 1974, and the script went through many drafts, including one by "Alien" screenwriter Dan O'Bannon. David Cronenberg was eventually attached as a director in 1984, and he had a grand idea for a plot about an Earth dictator. It was also Cronenberg's idea to depict Mars as populated by mutants. Cronenberg and the producers butted heads, though (he wanted to cast William Hurt in the lead role), and he eventually left. 

After a lot more jiggery-pokery, Arnold Schwarzenegger finally came on board and hired Paul Verhoeven to direct (Schwarzenegger, Hughes' book explains, was in contention for the lead in Verhoeven's "RoboCop," so they were familiar with one another). The film finally hit screens in 1990 and was a huge success. It cost a pricey $80 million to make but earned back over $261 million worldwide. 

The film is set in the future when Mars has been colonized. Schwarzenegger plays the lead character, a construction worker named Quaid who dreams of a fancier life. The future is replete with cool, miraculous technologies like holographic gym instructors, laser jackhammers, and robot-driven taxicabs. The robotic cab drivers were voiced by — and looked like — prolific character actor and star of "Star Trek: Voyager" Robert Picardo. In a 2020 oral history, Picardo discussed "Total Recall" with Syfy and, quite amusingly, revealed that he wasn't permitted to joke around with the film's star. 

Robert Picardo came to "Total Recall" in a stroke of good luck. Picardo is a regular in the films of Joe Dante and would also appear in Dante's "Gremlins 2: The New Batch," one of the greatest horror movies of a year full of them. 

For "The Explorers," special effects guru Rob Bottin had made a cast of Robert Picardo's head. Bottin, also working on "Total Recall," chose the cast as the basis for the design of the robotic Johnny Cab character. Bottin figured that Picardo should also play Johnny Cab, and recommended him to director Paul Verhoeven. 

Picardo, learning he would be interacting with Arnold Schwarzenegger during auditions, immediately began thinking of funny ways to converse with the star. As a cab driver, he felt the robot should jokingly comment on Schwarzenegger's Austrian accent. Paul Verhoeven, however, said that was verboten. In Picardo's words: 

"The only thing I remember from the audition is I kept trying to sell [Verhoeven] on doing a joke with Arnold, because Arnold famously had that great Austrian accent that no one ever acknowledged in his movies, which I always thought was kind of funny. [...] So I said, 'Mr. Verhoeven, when he gets in the cab and he says 'Drive, Just drive!' — and cab drivers always have sort of a pattern — what if I turned to him and said, 'You talk kind of funny, are you from out of town?' And I remember Paul Verhoeven said, 'No, no. We don't do that with Arnold.' And I said, 'What about just as a joke for the crew?' And he said, 'No, no. We don't do that with Arnold.'" 

So, no, he didn't do that with Arnold. 

Robert Picardo, by the way, doesn't appear on camera in "Total Recall." The Johnny Cab may look like him, and it's his voice, but he was never on the set, and he never met Arnold Schwarzenegger face-to-face (at least not on that movie). That was one of the reasons Picardo felt comfortable joshing around with the star. He said: 

"I got the message right then that you don't do that with Arnold. I thought, 'Hey, what a cool thing to be able to insult someone from 2,000 miles away, 'cause they're shooting in Mexico City and I'm safely in L.A.' But it never worked out."

Picardo, of course, recorded his lines and moved on to "Gremlins 2." 1990 was also the year he regularly appeared on both "China Beach" (where he played Dr. Dick Richard) and "The Wonder Years" (where he played Coach Cutlip). Picardo, however, is one of those hard-working and prolific character actors who never seemed to suffer a career slump. He was in multiple films and TV shows every year, reliably providing his talents to the masses. "Star Trek: Voyager" merely proved to be one of his more visible and longer-running jobs. He played the holographic Doctor, a role he would reprise for "Star Trek: First Contact," "Star Trek: Prodigy," and "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy." 

Now 72, Picardo is still working, regularly attends "Star Trek" conventions, and can sometimes be seen wearing amusing T-shirts. Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, Picardo was not tapped to appear in the forgettable 2012 remake of "Total Recall." More's the pity.