MEET THE REAL TERMINATOR SALVATION
Arnold Schwarzenegger is reunited with Linda Hamilton in Terminator: Dark Fate... and he thinks the return of Sarah Connor may be just what the franchise needs. meets the cast
THE role of action hero Sarah Connor may have made Linda Hamilton a household name, but she was content to put the Terminator films behind her nearly 30 years ago.
Linda first kicked cyborg butt in James Cameron’s
1984 blockbuster hit The Terminator as a waitressturned-warrior who was relentlessly hunted by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 – a humanoid machine – to stop her giving birth to her son, who would eventually lead the human resistance.
The novelty of a strong female lead in the film – as well as its groundbreaking special effects – made The Terminator a hit and super-charged the careers of both Linda and Arnold.
Linda returned as Sarah Connor, alongside Schwarzenegger, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, playing a tougher, more headstrong survivor. This time Arnold’s T-800 was her protector against a more advanced T-1000 model hellbent on killing her now teenage son John Connor.
T2 was another blockbuster hit, equalling its predecessor in terms of critical reception and lasting legacy.
Despite public appetite for her to make more sequels, Linda instead stepped out of the limelight, picking low-key TV and movie roles while the sci-fi franchise continued without her (and Cameron).
Speaking now, in a dimly-lit London hotel room with Arnold beside her – who is still visibly thrilled to be reunited with his on-screen sparring partner after 28 years – Linda admits it took “a little bit” of convincing to get her on board for Terminator: Dark Fate.
It was Cameron’s involvement as a producer that partly played into her decision to come back, as well as knowing the new film would act as a continuation of the events of T2, bypassing follow-up films Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009) and
Terminator: Genisys (2015).
“I had the original invite from Jim and took a number of weeks to really figure out if I was, not was up to it... but I always said that I had retired a champion with the first two,” Linda explains, referring to her ex-husband Cameron, to whom she was married briefly in the late 1990s and with whom she has a daughter.
“I didn’t want to come back and have it be diminished returns each time, less and less of Sarah Connor.”
“And then there’s the trade-off,” she says, noting her private, very non-Hollywood lifestyle.
“Do I really want another 15 minutes? I like my life, you know, normal,” she says with a shrug.
“But I thought that I had a big canvas to play with because so many years have passed and... who is Sarah Connor now?
“I felt there was an opportunity there.”
Addressing the lacklustre critical reception of the three Terminator films made in the interim, Linda insists Dark Fate
Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger are reunited on screen after a near three-decade gap
has the right ingredients to please fans of the first two films.
“In spite of the huge action – it is so far beyond anything I did my last time on Judgment Day – we have brought it back to a smaller number of characters that you really care about, that’s what creates the emotional impact,” she reasons.
Arnie, who reprised his role in two of the other three movies, agrees, adding: “And we have Linda back, which is really fantastic because I think Jim
Cameron was absolutely right. He told me about the story and then he said, ‘And we’re gonna bring Linda back’.
“I was very excited about that because she was really missing. And of course, she’s the number one bad**s there is!”
The importance of Linda and Arnie’s on-screen reunion after nearly three decades was not lost on new cast members Mackenzie Davis and Gabriel Luna.
“This was such a big part of her life,” says Blade Runner 2049 star Mackenzie.
“For her to come back, it was a big deal and we all really wanted to make her proud and for this not to be a mistake.”
In Dark Fate, Mackenzie plays Grace, a human soldier enhanced with robotic technology from the future who needs to protect Colombian actress Natalia Reyes’ character Dani, an unsuspecting young woman living in Mexico City who becomes the target of a new breed of Terminator, a Rev-9, played by Agents Of Shield star Gabriel.
Directed by Deadpool’s Tim Miller, the film sees Sarah Connor join forces with Grace and recruit Arnie’s ageing T-800 to help protect Dani against the terrifying Rev-9 in a storyline mirroring that first Terminator release.
Gabriel was overjoyed to work with Linda, and notes her impact on the other female cast members, saying Mackenzie and Natalia looked up to her “as this queen lion of the pride”. Arnie was just as impressed. “We worked really hard, we rehearsed the stunts for many, many hours, and I was really impressed with the women in our movie because they were as tough as the guys.”
But the cast is adamant the film is more than just spectacular effects and action set pieces. Linda herself points out: “As our director says, you can blow up a thousand buildings but it doesn’t matter if you don’t care about who’s inside the building.”
With her back, audiences will at least care about the human stakes amid all the destruction. And that could just be the secret to the film’s success.
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