Shooting sci-fi with Arnold Schwarzengger was a nightmare for the crew

Jungle, war and an alien on the hunt – an action-packed shoot is inevitable in Predator from 1987. And that means a lot of physical effort for the stars and the crew. Arnold Schwarzenegger was aware that the shoot would demand a lot from him physically. And The stunt people weren’t spared either. But all the knowledge didn’t prevent the filming from becoming one of the action star’s most unpleasant experiences.

The Predator shoot wasn’t just extremely stressful for Arnold Schwarzenegger

In an interview during the film’s promotional tour at the time, a reporter shared her first impression. So it didn’t look like it would have been much fun to make this film. Schwarzenegger replied:

With films it’s always like this: the more fun the audience has while watching and the more entertaining it is for the audience, the more miserable it is for us actorsgoing through this whole experience of filming and filmmaking.

Schwarzenegger thus confirmed the reporter’s suspicions. The Predator shoot, directed by John McTiernan, was evident very strenuous and led to countless injuries. Not just with the star, but also with the stunt people. You can listen to Schwarzenegger’s remarks here:

There were a lot of injuries, none of the stuntmen came home without injuries.

Arnold shared a very specific story about one Stunt where he jumped down a waterfall. He only had to jump once for the close-up, but the stuntman, who then repeated the stunt four times, injured his foot on the last attempt and was flown home.

However, Schwarzenegger didn’t let the tough shoot get him down. Even his colleague Carl Weathers felt challenged by Schwarzenegger’s iron discipline.

However, the hard turn also came at a price. Schwarzenegger became dehydrated and the heat affected him as well as the rest of the crew. The location in the jungle didn’t make the work any easier. The reward for the hardships was one of the greatest sci-fi action films of all time.