Arnold Schwarzenegger has just released Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life, a new self-help/memoir book. In it, he remembers a very eventful time filming Conan the Barbarian.
Bleeding Vultures
Schwarzenegger claims that Conan director John Milius put him through ”terrible shit” during the making of the movie.
“I learned to ride horses and camels and elephants. I learned how to jump from large rocks, climb and swing from long ropes, and fall from a height,” writes the Austrian actor, a former bodybuilder and politician. “I basically went to another vocational school, this one for aspiring action heroes.”
“Then, on top of that, Milius had me doing all kinds of terrible shit. 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.”
The wildest part of his recollection comes from filming the scene where Conan is tied to a tree. During this scene, Schwarzenegger had to bite a dead vulture on multiple takes.
“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.),” he then recalls an injury to go with the insult. “On one of the first days of filming, I tore a gash on my back that required forty stitches.”
Schwarzenegger would play Conan again despite the experience, only this time with a different director.
His book Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life is out now.
