As expected of all men over 18 in his native Austria, action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger served in the country’s army in 1965. He, along with several other actors, was cast in the 1987 sci-fi action film Predator due to having military experience. Two years earlier, the future governor of California starred in the film Commando, in which he plays John Matrix, a retired US colonel whose daughter is kidnapped by a group of mercenaries. Matrix uses her military training one last time to save her daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano).
Commando is a truly brilliant film. The film, building on the success of Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator, was his first major film role, playing a man with close human connections, highlighted by his character’s bond with his daughter. Of course, the film is still filled with machine guns, explosions and dangerous stunts – and thanks to his military service, Schwarzenegger shines in scenes involving these elements.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger performed almost all of his own stuns
During an oral history of “Commando,” Arnold Schwarzenegger told Empire why he felt somewhat at home while making the movie. “I was in the Austrian army and was a tank driver,” he said.“So, the action of ‘Commando’ wasn’t all new to me.”While we didn’t get the pleasure of watching Schwarzenegger outrun the bad guys while driving a tank in the film, his past experience allowed him to pull off a lot of his own stunts.
“I owe it to my fans to do it myself because they’re paying to see me,” he explained.
Schwarzenegger even went too far, as the film’s director Mark L. Lester told Empire:
“Arnold insisted on doing almost all the stunts himself, because he said nobody could duplicate his body. Even when we were doing a close-up of Matrix jamming a knife into a sheath, he said, ‘My hand cannot be duplicated. It is one of a kind.’ When he did the shot, he cut his other hand with the knife and had to go to hospital.”
One thing about Schwarzenegger is that he will find a way to get hurt on set. He happily shared with Yahoo Entertainment how many times he was injured while filming the film. Perhaps putting him in a tank wouldn’t be the best idea.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has owned a tank since at least 1991. The kicker is that it’s the same tank he used during his military training in Austria, according to CNBC; he paid $20,000 to have it shipped to the U.S. The actor whipped out the 50-ton 1951 M-47 Patton on a 2018 episode of “Jay Leno’s Garage,” and he and the former late night talk host crushed a limousine with it.
But Schwarzenegger does more with his tank than just destroy things. He told Leno he also uses it to encourage disadvantaged children to stay in school. “I bring my kids here after school,” he told Leno. “When they stay in school, their reward is to come here and race tanks with me.” It’s so cool. I definitely wouldn’t have a problem going to school if it meant I got to ride around in a Terminator tank.