I Just Spoke On The Phone With Arnold Schwarzenegger, We Talked About Blowing Sh*t Up

Last week I post a video titled ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Guide To Blowing Sh*t Up’, which is EXACTLY what it sounds like. It’s a video just over two minutes long showing The Terminator himself blowing up a car using a rocket launcher. This morning I received an email in my inbox along the lines of ‘Hey Cass, we saw that you posted Arnold’s video. Would you have any interest in hopping on the phone with him for a quick interview?’ My jaw dropped.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is larger than life. We’re talking about the man who’s been the biggest action star in the world for going on four decades. The Terminator, The Governator, this is the man who killed the Predator, who starred in Conan the Barbarian, Commando, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, and a billion other memorable movies both recent and from decades past. So my answer was a very casual “HELL YES I WANT TO HOP ON THE PHONE AND SPEAK WITH MR. OLYMPIA!

So what’d we talk about? Well, we started off discussing Mr. Schwarzenegger’s current charity project with Omaze (check it out here), and how you can win a trip to L.A. to ‘blow sh*t up’ with Arnold himself, and how all the proceeds from this campaign will go towards Arnold’s nearest and dearest charity: After-School All-Stars (ASAS). And might I also add that he’s 100% the nicest, most pleasant celebrity I’ve ever interviewed.

Things I learned from speaking with The Last Action hero himself on the phone include the following: Arnold’s favorite explosions involving blowing up a living room. Something about all the moving parts going in different directions are just the best. Also, his kids used to demand to visit movie sets on days when he’d blow up things like trains, planes, and automobiles. Because everyone wants to be there for the biggest and baddest of the explosions. But before I give away too much, let’s just jump into my quick 10-minute phone interview with the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Cass: “First off Mr. Schwarzenegger, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to speak with us today. Both myself and our readership are HUGE FANS of yours. You’re the closest thing to a living God when it comes to action movies, and I’m humbled that you’d take the time to speak with me on the phone today. Let’s start off by you telling me a little bit about this charity project that you’re working on with Omaze.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger: “It came about, you know because of the after school program (After-School All-Stars), one of my favorite charities, something I’ve been involved with the past 5 years. One thing you always have to do with charities is raise money. (There are) a lot of talented people here, but you always have to raise money, because every day has costs, with each child costs $7/after school program. So we have this program 5 days a week, Monday through Friday. They get food arranged, adult supervision. My idea is to provide them with those things, give them the opportunity. If you give kids the opportunity to be great (in life), they will be great. The whole things is about ‘hey, let’s have fun and raise money’ for those kids that need help, and to use my celebrity status to help raise the money. Omaze came along and started this whole charity, so we connected with them and they’re helping us out. Last year we did the tank, crushed things, raised over a million dollars.”

Cass: “So this year’s winner of the Omaze charity contest will get to ‘blow sh*t up with you?’ Is there anything you’re looking forward to blowing up the most? Do you know what exactly you’ll be blowing up with the winner?”

Arnold: (on what they’ll be blowing up and what he likes to blow up) “Lots of things together, it’s funny. When someone wins they put together the list. Whatever that may be. If they want to blow up a car, a truck, a living room, whatever it may be. We have no idea. Anything that’s going to make a huge bang and create lots of fire. We basically improvise.”

Cass: “So how did the idea for this ‘blow sh*t up with Arnold’ charity give away come about?”

Arnold: “I know from the past, whenever I tell people ‘Thursday we’re going to blow up this bridge’, everyone wants to come to the set. Kids always insist whenever I blew stuff up they’d come to the set. That’s how we got the idea for this.”

Cass: “Was there a ‘most memorable explosion’ in your career?”

Arnold: “Well there’s so many, I remember Commando, and the military base, Predator. So many, cars, trucks, and trains. I had my fair share of ‘big, big blowups’. It’s not easy to do because you know with everyone explosion that you have to make sure everyone is safe. But like the last time (presumably talking about recent pyrotechnics from ‘Terminator Genisys’) my hair was standing up and I had to hit the deck, pure explosions.”

…. at this point we circled back and he started talking about how this ‘blow sh*t up with Arnold’ campaign came about, and the safety of explosions

“You know, the heat of it, you don’t get burned and don’t get hurt. Skillful explosions. The whole things is about ‘hey, let’s have fun and raise money’ for those kids that need help, and to use my celebrity status to help raise the money. When you go to those high school fundraisers across America they sell off those charity items and take in maybe $13,000 or $20,000, it’s great but when you use celebrity power you can you can bring in millions.”

Cass: “What’s your favorite type of explosion? What do you most love to see blown up?”

Arnold: “I think I would like to see the living room blow up. Always my favorite, so much that flies through the air.”

Cass: “Is there anyone from The Expendables cast that could beat you in an arm wrestling contest?”

Arnold: “Probably, I don’t know, we have never done that. There’s some very strong guys (in that cast).”

…Arnold on how much he’s training these days: “Gym morning and night, and sometimes during the day. Training is important to me especially. When you are in these movies you can’t be only 80%.

On filming the recent Terminator Genisys: “(The Director would say) Remember Arnold, in 1984, you know you weighed around 230-pounds. It’s the same skeleton even though you’re 30 years older (now). We want to show that frame, the same frame, but it’s a different body.’ So I trained up to 230-pounds for that movie.”

Cass: “How much can you bench press these days?”

Arnold: “I cannot remember that now. I’m doing different sorts of training at the moment.”

And that’s when my brief, but amazing conversation with the greatest action star in history ended. I didn’t pull any juicy gossip quotes from the former Governor of California, I didn’t get him to say anything disparaging about other actors, or boast about his own career. We just talked, and I heard him speak passionately his After-School All-Stars (ASAS) charity, and how important the current Omaze Experience he’s running is in terms of fund raising.

As I mentioned before, this entire interview hinged around ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Guide to Blowing Sh*t Up’, the video you can see below:

If you’re reading this interview then I’m 100% certain that you would love to blow sh*t up with Arnold Schwarzenegger yourself, and YOU CAN. If you click on over to Omaze you can get in on the action starting with a donation of just $10. For $10 you get ‘100 chances (entries) to blow sh*t up with Arnold’. For a $25 donation you get 250 chances. Those donations keep going up to $50,000, where you get 500,000 entries into the ‘blow sh*t up with Arnold’ contest as well as a VIP entry into Arnold’s 2016 Charity Poker Tournament in Los Angeles. CLICK NOW to put up at least a ten dollar donation, and get in on the action, and know you’ll have a chance to blow sh*t up with ‘The Terminator’ himself.