With James Earl Jones’ Help, Arnold Schwarzenegger Became an Action Star
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James Earl Jones played two of the most villainous characters in movie history, but he could be a trustful companion when the cameras weren’t rolling.
Most know Jones, who died Monday at age 92, for his voice work as Darth Vader, the black-clad Sith Lord from the Star Wars franchise. He portrayed an equally-intimidating character, sorcerer Thulsa Doom, in the 1982 fantasy epic Conan the Barbarian.
That movie is now considered the launching pad for actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wasn’t yet known as an action star when he played the titular warrior. But with a little help from Jones on the Conan set, Schwarzenegger’s career soon took off.
Watch Conan the Barbarian on Amazon Prime Video or Netflix
Schwarzenegger struggled with his lines
By the end of the 1970s, Schwarzenegger was best known for his bodybuilding career. The Austrian won the Mr. Olympia title six times and starred in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron. Although he won a Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut in 1976’s Stay Hungry, his transition to performing wasn’t a runaway success.
Still, his large physique made him the perfect choice to play Conan, the muscular fighter first introduced in the 1930s by writer Robert E. Howard. Because of his immense size, Schwarzenegger didn’t have a believable stunt double—meaning he had to learn and perform skills such as horseback riding, sword fighting, and rope climbing for the role.
His preparation wasn’t only physical in nature. His thick accent led to struggles reading his lines. In the 1989 book Flights of Fancy: The Great Fantasy Films, Kenneth von Gunden writes that the actor went to director John Milius’ trailer before lunch each day to practice his longer samples of dialogue. By the time he performed some of the monologues, he had rehearsed them more than 40 times.
He also had some help from a co-star: Jones.
Jones gave Schwarzenegger speaking tips
Jones was already an established star of stage and screen by the time he was filming Conan the Barbarian. In 1969, he won the Tony Award for Best Actor for The Great White Hope. The veteran actor also garnered acclaim for his role in the 1974 movie Claudine and his voice part of Vader—for which he went uncredited in the first two Star Wars movies in 1977 and 1980.
By adding Jones, as well as Max von Sydow, to the Conan cast, Milius provided Schwarzenegger two established performers to work with and learn from. The budding actor took advantage, often speaking with Jones for tips on reading his lines during the movie shoot in Spain.
In return, Schwarzenegger provided Jones with suggestions for his fitness routine. “We were all billeted in the same hotel. [Arnold] was working out all the time, and I was a bit overweight, so he said, ‘Let me show you a few things you can do,’” Jones told Empire in 2016. “They were tough—my wife was with me, too, huffing and puffing with me.”
Yet Another Chapter in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Life
Jones trusted Schwarzenegger with a dangerous stunt
In addition to Schwarzenegger’s line deliveries, Conan the Barbarian has became a cult classic thanks to its practical effects—in one memorable sequence, Jones’ character transforms into a giant snake—and violent stunts.
The latter led to multiple injuries and close calls on set. According to von Gunden, actor Sandhal Bergman, who played Conan’s female ally Valeria, suffered burns while filming one scene and severely lacerated a finger in a sword fighting sequence. Even Schwarzenegger had a scary moment in which a wolf bit him, causing a fall that required stitches.
Given this, it would’ve been reasonable for Jones to be uneasy about the movie’s climactic scene in which Conan beheads the villainous Doom with a sword. Instead, he rehearsed the scene repeatedly with Schwarzenegger using different variations of the implement. The end result is one of the film’s goriest and most famous moments.
“He wore a specific harness [that] protected him from the ear to the shoulder, so I was supposed to hack at the beginning of the neck,” Schwarzenegger explained in a behind-the-scenes documentary. “It was amazing that, because of all the practice that we had done for this scene, that James Earl Jones felt comfortable enough that he actually himself stood there.”
Another cast member later claimed that Jones had chunks of roasted meat stuffed into his costume for extra protection, but the actor denied this. “That’s a great story! Not true, but oh man, keep perpetuating it,” he told Empire.
Jones was proud of Conan
The movie was a financial success, grossing almost $69 million worldwide and spawning the 1984 sequel Conan the Destroyer. Although Schwarzenegger’s line delivery remained a work in progress, very few doubted his acting abilities following the role.
Also in 1984, the Austrian debuted as the seemingly unstoppable cyborg in The Terminator. He soon became one of the biggest draws in box-office history thanks to action classics such as Commando (1985), Predator (1987), and Total Recall (1990). “I think my goal is to be up there equal to Clint Eastwood or Robert Redford, or any of those guys, and I’m very well on my way,” Schwarzenegger said of participating in Conan.
Jones was likewise thankful to work with Schwarzenegger and proud of the movie, even comparing its scale to something out of William Shakespeare’s catalog. “It’ll be a very important film because it is picking up the thread that we saw with Stars Wars frankly, a thread of epic adventure,” he said back in the early ’80s. “This is a thread that goes back to the past, but it’s the same thread of epic adventure that all human beings are anxious to see.”
Thanks to their cooperation, the movie has endured as a cult classic and will continue to keep Jones’ legacy alive for generations.
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