Linda Hamilton: I always wanted to retire a champion
Above, left: Hamilton with producer James Cameron on the set of the first Terminator (1984) and today at 62 in Terminator: Dark
Fate. Says Cameron, ‘We would not have brought Sarah Connor back without Linda. When Sarah appears onscreen, you just feel, ‘Okay, here we go!’
SEOUL – Almost throughout
Terminator: Dark Fate in which she reprises her iconic role as Sarah Connor, Linda Hamilton wears very dark shades, armed with a gigantic weapon. Thankfully, she showed up at a suite in Four Seasons Hotel “un-shaded” and “un-armed” for the roundtable interview with the Asian journalists at last week’s junket for the movie produced by her ex-spouse James Cameron.
As soon as she and co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger were seated, Hamilton asked each of the seven journalists their names and what country they were from, and then she winked at them to signal the start of Q&A, very charming and very engaging during the 15 minutes allotted for every star-interviewee. She was so accommodating that, even when it was a big no-no, she said, “Why not?” when one journalist asked if he could have a picture with her “Come over, let’s have a group picture,” she commanded us. (Take note: not every Hollywood actor can be so generous. Bless you, Linda Hamilton!)
Did she like the movie? “I haven’t seen it yet,” she replied, “so I can’t tell you,” adding with a little shrug, “but I’m sure I’m not gonna like it because it was a body double instead of me at the start of the movie, and they put a CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) face on it. In that scene, what you see is not me.”
Of course, Hamilton was speaking tongue-in-cheek and we all laughed a bit, having raved at the non-stop heart-pounding action scenes from beginning to end that left us catching for breath during the screening the night before.
Hamilton reprises the role that she originated in The Terminator (1984) and replayed in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), both also produced by Cameron (who co-wrote the Dark Fate story), along with Schwarzenegger (T-800) as the killer machine that spares nothing and nobody in his relentless hunt for waitress Sarah Connor, sent from the future on a deadly mission to kill her and her unborn son, the future leader of the human race. No spoiler alert but Dark Fate puts Sarah Connor on a deadlier mission.
“Only this time,” explained Schwarzenegger, 72, who is back in tip-top shape (thanks to rigorous training) albeit a bit heavier, “T-800
is made more human while a new Terminator is created.” Called Rev-9, the new killer machine is
played by Gabriel Luna (featured with Schwarzenegger in last Sunday’s Conversations with Ricky Lo.)
Although Hamilton and Schwarzenegger both starred in other movies, it was the Terminator franchise that turned them into superstars, with the former’s name billed ahead of those of the other cast since the Dark Fate story is woven around Sarah Connor.
Did you know that Hamilton almost didn’t want to do the role again?
“It really took quite a bit of time for me to decide to come back because I’d always wanted to retire a champion,” Hamilton, 62, confessed. “I thought that whatever we had in those two films is kind of untouched, so how dare we try to go back at this age!
“After T-2, I felt that I had worked a very complete character arc from a nobody to a warrior woman. At that point, I didn’t want to just keep doing it without the ability to add something new. But the last 28 years have changed
Sarah Connor dramatically and I was ready to explore that.
“You know, I never saw it coming, so when it came up, I was like,
‘Whoaaa!!!’ But I’m glad that I came back and got to experience this whole thing which is so huge and its very hugeness was the hardest and the best thing I’ve ever done.”
She echoed Schwarzenegger comment that he was happy to be T-800 again, 28 years after he last did it.
“I felt the same way,” assured Hamilton. “I have been gone longer than Arnold, I was a little farther away from Sarah Connor than he has ever been from T-800. But it was just wonderful to be working with him again.”
Cameron and those behind the franchise believe that what made Sara Connor a movie icon is “her transformation from naïve waitress to guerrilla fighter in order to save her son from the original Terminator. Hamilton again breaks the mold as the older, perhaps wiser, and definitely angrier, Connor.”
Observed Cameron, “While recent action films such as Wonder
Woman and Captain Marvel have featured female protagonists, Sarah Connor is in a league of her own. How many of those characters are over 40? How many of them are over 60?”
The role has been so closely associated with Hamilton that there wasn’t any doubt she would be asked to return for Dark Fate.
“I don’t think any of us imagined anyone else in the role,” said Cameron. “We would just not have brought Sarah back without Linda. When Sarah appears on screen, you just feel, ‘Okay, here we go’.”
Dark Fate director Tim Miller (Deadpool) agreed, “No offense to other actors who have played her in other films but to me, there’s only one Sarah Connor and it is Linda Hamilton.”
After she read the script, Hamilton recalled that she turned to her best friends and said, “I have to get my affairs in order. The action is 10 times bigger than in T-2. I even tried suggesting that Sarah be fat at this point in her life so I wouldn’t have to work so hard. Wouldn’t that shock people? But they said no.”
So Hamilton said that she went into intense training with New Orleans-based fitness expert Mackie Shilstone who has worked with professional athletes including Serena Williams and Peyton Manning, enduring thrice-daily workouts focused on burning fat and building muscle. She also went to a training camp in Texas with military and tactile advisor Jack Nevils. Asked how she felt about the
Terminator offer 35 years ago, Hamilton laughed a bit.
“I was a somewhat snotty New York actress. And there were people then who would say, ‘Don’t go to LA…you’ll be ruined!’ But my agent was excited. I didn’t appreciate what we were doing until halfway through the shoot when I got engaged and I thought, ‘Oh, wow, Jim Cameron is a genius!’ I really didn’t know until I saw the film that it was good.”
Imagine what the Terminator franchise would be like without Linda Hamilton!