Even though German is his mother tongue, Arnold Schwarzenegger was not allowed to dub his own character in the “Terminator” saga: find out why.
While Arnold Schwarzenegger has played many iconic characters in cinema, it's hard to find one that surpasses the impact of his legendary Terminator. The actor brought the iconic T-800 cyborg to life like no one else could.
Born in the village of Thal in Austria, his mother tongue is German. The dubbing actor for the German version of the film was therefore easy to find: himself! And yet, he was not allowed to dub himself. The reason? His accent.
On the go, baby
Arnold Schwarzeneggerhimself, wanted to do it but the idea was unfortunately abandoned because his German accent was considered too rural by German-Austrian standards of the time. Indeed, while the official language of Austria is German, there are also some regional dialects. Therefore, it was decided that it would be strange for a robot from the future going back in time to speak with a “colloquial” accent, as if he came from a “small town”.
Carolco Pictures
It was ultimately the late voice actor Thomas Danneberg – who also dubbed other iconic actors such as Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta, Nick Nolte and Rutger Hauer – who was tasked with lending his voice to the character and pronouncing the legendary “Hasta la vista, baby” in the German version.
Thomas Danneberg voiced the iconic cyborg for nearly the entire saga, from James Cameron's first film in 1984 to Terminator Genisys in 2015 – in addition to being the regular voice ofArnold Schwarzenegger in German in several of his other cult films such as True Lies, Total Recall and Predator.
Terminator (1984) is streaming again on MUBI.