LET'S ALL MEEET UP WITH THE T-1000
As TerminATor 2 reTurns To cinemAs wiTh A new 3D releAse, iAn BerrimAn TAlks To sTAr roBerT PATrick
I was staring at the casting director like I was gonna blow her brains out
camera and do something’. then i snapped around, looked right down the lens and gave it this intense look. And evidently Jim cameron had a reaction to that.”
the director had found the man his script described as having “eyes of gray ice – penetrating, intelligent.” though patrick had just a few roger corman B-movies and a mercenary in Die Hard II under his belt, in a way success came as no surprise.
“When i first heard about the role i knew i was gonna get it,” the actor confides. “i sort of felt it was fated. from whatever spirituality that i have, i felt like somebody was guiding me through it. deep!”
once on set, tremendous discipline was required to bring together all the elements of the performance that made the t-1000 such an iconic antagonist.
“the daily challenge was convincing myself i was this thing,” patrick explains. “We worked really hard to come up with very specific things. i had a checklist that i had to keep myself aware of while i was filming: this is how i walk, this is how i take my stance, this is my posture – don’t drift from that, stay specific.”
the actor also took inspiration from the natural world, taking elements from a whole host of predators.
“i was drawing from, like, how does a cat look before it’s gonna strike?” patrick says. “How does a praying mantis move if they get fixated with something? the animal kingdom is the software that’s embedded in the t-1000, right? i mean, he had to get it from somewhere – they had to programme this thing for target acquisition. so that’s what i was using, as an actor. i’m a praying mantis, i’m a cat, i’m a lion, i’m an eagle, i’m a shark…”
the actor leans forward in his chair.
“You know what scene i’m a shark in?” he grins. “i’m riding the motorcycle, i’m coming through the debris from the sWAt attack [on cyberdyne HQ], i’m swimming through all that. i come right up into my spot, i look up, and fire comes in the mirror shades... i’m a shark, right? that was the language Jim and i were using: ‘You’re a shark!’”
not everyone, however, was quite so appreciative of the thought that went into patrick’s performance. When SFX remarks on what an iconic character the t-1000 is, the actor seems genuinely touched.
“it’s very gratifying for me to have people acknowledge that,” he says, “Because when the movie came out there were people going, ‘it’s not really acting – you didn’t have a lot of dialogue.’ it’s funny how people think they can just say whatever the fuck they want to you! ‘oh, well, it wasn’t really acting.’ ‘er... okay. Well, let’s see you do it!’”
Asked if there’s any sequence he’s particularly proud of, patrick starts recounting how the t-1000 pursues John and sarah connor though pescadero state Hospital for the criminally insane, eventually leaping onto the back of the car they’re escaping in.
“that’s a fucking amazing sequence! one particular thing i liked was when i was running and i dove – i remember diving over the cameras into the big soft pad that i landed in. then months later on a soundstage, the car’s there, they’ve got rear-projection of the scene, and now i’m coming up the back of it – BooM!”
And that arm swings through the air…
“once the t-1000 was fixated, target-wise, i really tried not to blink that much. so i tried to really lock my eyes. i had a spot that i had to hit, but my eyes were here…”
patrick locks a death-stare on his interviewer. Wibble. then that arm swings around again.
“… And i had to just land it – VooM! the back of the car had been scored, so the hooks were gonna go in there, and it was hard to find that slot for the hook. so there was a certain amount of frustration!”
A beat of awkward silence. then your correspondent snaps out of it, realising that he’s not living inside Terminator 2 – just, crazily, watching one of the stars act it out in front of him. it’s possible you’ll feel similarly sucked into the Terminator universe when T2: 3D opens. converted from a 4K scan of the original negative by the same team behind Titanic 3D, under the supervision of James cameron, it will, according to the director, “be better than what you saw in the movie theatre back in 1991.”
robert patrick is certainly impressed by the results. “Have you seen it yet?” he eagerly enquires, as we make our farewells. “Let me tell ya,” he remarks, a mischievous glint in his eye, “you won’t need to smoke anything first!”
Your SFX correspondent is frozen like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming juggernaut. one of the universe’s most deadly killing machines – a mimetic polyalloy t-1000 terminator – is just a couple of feet away, and has locked onto its target. now, as its laser-like gaze burns into your quivering hack’s eyeballs, its clawed hand is describing an arc through the air, coming to a halt scarcely an inch from his chest. Yikes.
rewind. the time zone: the year 2017. the place: the May fair Hotel, London. the t-1000’s new programming: promote a reissue of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, now upgraded to 3d. the form the shapeshifting assassin is wearing – the same cop it imitated during its pursuit of the young John connor – is noticeably older, the skin a little less taut, but those eyes still burn like they did when they were key to struggling young actor robert patrick winning the role that changed his life.
“i was sold as a cross between david Bowie and James dean by my agent,” patrick recalls. “that got me in the door with the casting director. then i had to figure out how to pique her interest. i remember i deliberately kept my eyes on her. i waited for her to look away, then look back at me, and i was staring at her like i was gonna blow her brains out! All i knew was they wanted an intense presence. okay, how do you create an intense presence? Well you just slow everything down and move very deliberately. they said, ‘You’re sense aware’. so i started hearing with my eyes…”
patrick slowly sweeps his peepers from side to side, like a searchlight, as he recalls the improvisatory session.
“i was doing this free-for-all of movement. i remember doing a thing where i was like an indian tracker: putting my hand on the floor, kneeling and looking around. then at a certain point i said, ‘i’m gonna put my back to the