Actor, bodybuilder and former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently published a new self-help/memoir book titled “Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life”.
Now an excerpt from the book has gone online (via Coming Soon) going into the time he spent filming “Conan the Barbarian” and the ‘terrible s—‘ he was subjected to by director John Milius during the film’s making.
The actor says his training for the film included learning to ride horses, camels and elephants. He had to “jump from large rocks, climb and swing from long ropes, and fall from a height”and dubbed it another vocational school.
That’s when he goes into detail about what Milius had him do on the set, including one key scene where Conan is tied to a tree and Schwarzenegger had to bite into a “dead vulture on multiple takes”:
“I crawled through rocks, take after take, until my forearms bled. I ran from wild dogs that managed to catch me and pull me into a thorn bush.
I bit a real, dead vulture that required I wash my mouth out with alcohol after each take. (PETA would have a field day with that one.). On one of the first days of filming, I tore a gash on my back that required forty stitches.”
Despite the hardship, the role ended up putting the actor on the map and led to both a sequel and his role in James Cameron’s “The Terminator” which cemented him as a 1980s action icon.
