What sports movies do you enjoy watching?
“Wow, I don't know that there's any particular sports movie that I would prefer watching over another. I like good movies. It's not about genre. It's not about the setting. It's not about that particular world that the movie seems to be taking place in. It's about whether or not it works, whether or not there's something in it that I find interesting, that I find entertaining, that I may or may not learn something from. Something that appeals. At the end of the day, I just want to go to a movie to have a good time like everybody else. At the end of the day, it's like okay, there's great, great so-called films and others are just movies, man. If I'm going to go to something, I want it to be something I'd enjoy no matter what, even if the enjoyment brings tears. But I do want to be able to walk out of the theater and go, ‘Wow, that was a good time.’"
What might Action Jackson 2 have been?
“Oh my God, let's not even go there. Well, man, pictures are so funny because the reasons pictures are made or not made can be probably as many as you can come up with. In the world of moviemaking, I think it could have been a great, great series of movies that could have been a lot of fun and could have just gotten better, quite frankly. But that wasn't my call. My agent and people I'm involved with approached and couldn't get the kind of response we wanted. As a result, Action Jackson had his day in court and that was the end of that -- onto other stuff.
So how many times can you say in your life that you've managed to be involved in the kind of movies I've been involved in and had the successes I've had and have those movies be as well received around the world as they have been and have people still talking about them today, 20 years after, 30 years after? People remember those characters, so obviously the successes are what they are. And those things that didn't become as successful as you would like to happen, that's just the draw of the cards.”
What were your emotions when you read the script to Rocky IV and saw that Apollo died?
“Well, I don’t remember what my emotions were at the moment but I do remember reading it and going, ‘What? WHAT?’ The only thing you ultimately come up with is those deaths were devices to give Rocky some sort of inspiration to go on. Now had I written the script, it would have been different. But I didn't write the script. I had a great run in those movies and had a great, great time working with the people I worked with. The rest of it is there for posterity. People look at the movies and enjoy them to this day and talk about them, and bring them up -- just as you are now.”
What was it like hanging out in the jungle with the Predator gang?
“Oh my God, we had such a great time. You get a bunch of guys together, you don't have to worry about changing wardrobe. You don't have to worry about makeup. You don't have to worry about -- I'm not saying that we didn't have makeup, but you didn't worry about it like you do on other pictures. You put it on and when you need to wipe some of the sweat down, you wipe some of the sweat down. When you need to add some, you spritz a little. You don't have to worry about a lot of stuff.
With these other movies where you're under lights and you're in the studio and there's a different kind of vibe to the movie and necessity to look good and all that sort of stuff, we looked good in that but we were manly. So you can have sweat running down your face at a time when making another kind of movie you wouldn't. And then I hung out with a bunch of wacky guys, just scratching and having a good time and laughing and smoking cigars and just doing what guys do. You don't get a lot of those movies. I've been fortunate. I've worked in a lot of things where I had those kinds of experiences with actors who were perceived as very macho guys, everybody from Lee Marvin to Charlie Bronson to Harrison Ford to Robert Shaw. To work in those kinds of pictures, Schwarzenegger, there are just not that many actors, I think, who can talk about those kinds of experiences and have a fondness for them and have grown up doing those kind of movies with really iconic actors.”
Will you show up once more in The Shield's last season?
“I haven't heard anything. They certainly could write another episode for that character because the character is still alive. I had such a great time on the show that I would in a heartbeat. I'd be back there. You never know. I thought this last season was supposed to be their last. In fact, I was working with them on the last episode I did, we were working when they got the pickup for what was supposed to be the last season. Chiklis came over to me and said, ‘Well, I got it, man.’ Because he was directing that episode, meaning he had that last year in there. Now they have another. Well, cool. I'd love to do the show again. I really had a great time. It was kind of a nice departure to do a really hard character on a show like that.”
