A Stunt On The Set Of The 6th Day Almost Did Arnold Schwarzenegger In
Action stars are cool and all, but the ones who love performing their own stunts are of a different breed, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is, in fact, of that breed. I suspect the man enjoyed the thrill of proving he could do everything his character could. He famously once pushed himself a little too far while filming 1985's "Commando," but that didn't scare him off from doing his own stunts in later productions.
Over a career that spans more than half a century, Schwarzenegger has learned that his great commitment to his craft comes with great risks of injury. The former California governor is no stranger to injuries onset, and he talks about them with great pride. He told Entertainment Tonight about how he was attacked by a freaking wolf while filming a scene for 1982's "Conan the Barbarian," and how when he suffered a deep gash on his wrist after shattering a subway window in 1990's "Total Recall," he got stitched up and returned to finish the shot — which called for him to leap through the shattered window of the moving subway.
Then there's 2013's "The Last Stand," Schwarzenegger's big comeback after fulfilling his gubernatorial duties. He sustained a head injury onset and tweeted a photo of himself smirking with a bloody forehead gash. Schwarzenegger may have been injured on set, but like a real-life terminator, he just keeps on coming back. However, there have been times when performing his own stunts almost cost him more than just a flesh wound.
Arnold Schwarzenegger almost drowned while filming The 6th Day
Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in the 2000 sci-fi film "The 6th Day." Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, the movie is set in the near future when animal cloning is legal and (for the most part) is socially acceptable, but human cloning is still prohibited. Schwarzenegger plays Adam Gibson, a charter pilot and family man who gets embroiled in a human cloning conspiracy. By 2000, "The Terminator" star's career was on a downward turn, and while Schwarzenegger wanted "The 6th Day" to reinvent his reputation, the film almost cost the beloved action star his life. During a 2014 Q&A on Reddit, a user asked Schwarzenegger what's the nearest he has ever been to death, and the actor pointed to the scene in "The 6th Day" where his character hides from an assassin (Sarah Wynter) in a water tank.
"On 'The 6th Day,' there was a scene where I hide underwater behind embryos. I did a rehearsal with goggles and everything went fine. But when we actually shot, I couldn't see because the water was milky. So I ran out of air and went to the top and realized I didn't know where to get out. I was trapped. Then a hand grabbed me and pulled me out."
Actors almost drowning during a stunt gone wrong is not unheard of. Luckily for Schwarzenegger, he had someone watching out for him.That hand belonged to Schwarzenegger's stunt double, Billy Lucas. "He'd been watching from below with a tank and goggles and realized I was in big, big trouble," Schwarzenegger wrote.
Although the near drowning was likely harrowing, it wasn't the actor's first brush with death while filming a movie.
A horse ride on the set of True Lies was near fatal
In his Reddit Q&A, Arnold Schwarzenegger detailed another incident that almost ended very badly. There's a scene in "True Lies" in which Schwarzenegger's character rides a horse atop the edge of a high-rise building. While filming this set piece, things almost took a turn for the worse. As he detailed on Reddit:
"On 'True Lies,' you probably remember the horse scene. There was a shot where the horse had to stop at the edge of a building. They built a little ramp to give the horse longer to stop. But when they were measuring the new distance from the ramp to the camera, they dropped the arm of the camera on the horse's nose, and it went crazy, spinning and rearing."
Schwarzenegger explained the very real risk of him falling off the building:
"There was no rail, and the ramp was only 4 feet wide. I realized it was a bad situation and I slid off the horse right away and a stunt man grabbed me. That one was really scary. If the horse stepped a foot the wrong way, we would have fallen 90 feet to a cement floor."
It's important to note that in both of Schwarzenegger's scary encounters onset, the person who came to his rescue was a stuntman. "These stories are why I will always love stunt people," he concluded in his post.
Arnold Schwarzenegger may go all-out for his movie roles — whether it's his intense pre-filming workout regimens or executing his own stunts — but he is quick to acknowledge that he doesn't do this alone. On at least two occasions, a stunt person kept the actor safe on set — and the action star is clearly grateful for that fact.