Here’s a thought experiment guaranteed to tie the brain of an advanced AI like Skynet in knots: The year is 1990 and you’re James Cameron trying to explain to the cast of Terminator 2: Judgment Day what the blockbuster sequel’s new Terminator is supposed to look like.
Rather than simply making a bigger, buffer version of Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s killer cyborg from the 1984 original, you’ve hit upon the idea that this updated futuristic assassin, the T-1000, will instead be a slender, sinister shapeshifting metal alloy that morphs its body and face in front of our very eyes. But how do you put into words a kind of character that nobody has ever seen onscreen before?
Thirty-five years later, of course, CGI-trained actors and audiences have the visual and verbal language to comprehend a VFX-assisted villain like the T-1000. But T2 stars Edward Furlong and Robert Patrick — who had to play the part — confirm to Gold Derby that neither of them could make head or tail of what Cameron was talking about at the time.
“I had no idea, and I don’t think anybody on the movie had any idea,” Furlong tells Gold Derby in a rare interview. “There’d been nothing like it before. In this business, you meet really talented people who have these visions, but then you read the script and you’re like, ‘A liquid mercury man? What the f**k are you talking about?!'”
“In the script, the T-1000 wasn’t described as a CGI character,” notes Patrick in a separate conversation. “It just said, ‘He morphs.’ So I was thinking, ‘What’s that going to be?’ It took me five hours to read that script — I’m not joking.”
That confusion continued as they made the movie, since the digital effects required to make the T-1000 seamlessly morph wouldn’t be completed until much later. “All of the stuff on set was practical,” recalls Furlong, then a 13-year-old unknown chosen to play the young version of humankind’s eventual post-apocalyptic savior, John Connor. “When we were shooting scenes, Robert would get shot and they would cut and he’d have the stay perfectly still while they put these foam rubber latex things on him that looked like liquid metal, but weren’t.
“Other times, we’d be running away from a piece of tape on a cross, and they’d say, ‘That’s Robert chasing after you, but he’s just a big blob of liquid metal,'” Furlong continues. “I was like, ‘OK, whatever that means!’ It wasn’t until I saw the movie fully-cut for the first time that I got it; and I was blown away just like everyone else.”
Patrick, at least, had the opportunity to see the storyboards of what the T-1000 was supposed to look like. Cameron also put him through an intensive screen test that would determine the physicality that’s so key to the performance. “Jim stressed to me the importance of fluidity because he’s a mimetic polyalloy,” Patrick says now. “We thought about how Skynet programmed him, and decided that he had been based on predators from nature, like a praying mantis. All of his movements had to be very specific, because the physicality is the character.
“I also thought about how something that’s liquid would react to being shot,” the actor continues, adding that Cameron connected him to the team at George Lucas’ pioneering Industrial Light & Magic VFX house early on. “I came up with the idea of using martial arts so that instead of resisting, he would fluidly take in the kinetic energy of a bullet and then bounce back. So I was free thinking about that kind of stuff on my own, and went to ILM to try and bring it altogether.”
Putting their trust in Cameron paid off for both actors, and resulted in a movie that revolutionized cinematic VFX, scoring an Oscar statuette in that category at the 1992 Academy Awards ceremony over Backdraft and Hook. (The movie received six nominations overall, and won four, including Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Makeup.)
T2 also frequently — and correctly — grouped among the all-time great sequels that surpass their predecessors, not just in terms of quality, but also box office. Released on July 3, 1991, the film handily became that year’s highest-grossing movie, and turned what had been a one-off sci-fi movie into a long-running franchise… for better (The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and for worse (Terminator: Genisys).
This weekend, audiences old and new have the chance to marvel at the T-1000 in theaters all over again courtesy of Fathom Entertainment’s 35th anniversary T2 re-release, specifically timed to coincide with the titular Judgment Day — Aug. 29. Furlong and Patrick shared some of their other memories from the shoot, and confirm that they’re both open to the Terminator universe… provided Cameron comes along, too.
Vista vision
Nobody loves a good quip — or even a cheesy quip — more than Arnold Schwarzenegger. And T2 awards him an Oscar-worthy villain-dispatching line, as he tells the T-1000 “Hasta la vista, baby,” seconds before (temporarily) blowing the baddie to smithereens. It’s the payoff to a memorable moment from earlier in the film when young John Connor gives his T-800 guardian a crash course in early ’90s slang.
Since Ah-nuld is framed in a tight close-up for that particular moment, Patrick says he likely wasn’t on set to be the recipient of that killer line. But he does remember what happened on his side of scene. “They had a gentleman on set who was an amputee, and they cut a hole in the stage,” he recalls. “The other actor filmed the part where the T-1000’s leg cracks and he goes down to what would be the stub of his knee. And from there on, it’s me performing in makeup that makes it look like I’m frozen. I remember having to hit this pose where I’m looking at my frozen hand that’s been broken off.
“I can’t remember if I was there when Arnold said, ‘Hasta la vista, baby,'” Patrick admits. “It was 35 years ago! But what a great line, and I love the way that he gets that line from Eddie earlier on in the story, and uses it to humanize himself a little.”
Furlong also can’t recall if he was on set for Schwarzenegger’s quip, but the setting for that entire climax is definitely lodged in his memory. “We were shooting in a real steel mill, and it was really cold the whole time,” he says now. “I actually got really sick while we were filming, and just had to power through it. They moved the schedule around for me a little bit, but that was my first experience of realizing that you can’t really get sick while you’re making a movie because you’re on a tight schedule.”
The actor also credits Schwarzenegger for showing his younger self what an on-set leader looks like. “I never saw him complain about anything,” Furlong says, admiringly. “I really looked up to him; he’s extremely professional and always uplifting. I learned how to keep a positive attitude around all sorts of things from him.”
Cameron clashes
By his own admission, Cameron wasn’t the easiest director to work with back in the T2 era. And Patrick recalls that he occasionally triggered the now-mellower director’s notorious temper. “I tried to look at it from a military point of view where Jim was my drill sergeant and I would answer him with a ‘Yes sir’ or ‘No sir,'” the actor says. “And Jim was always willing to listen to me if I had an idea. I remember this one scene where I’m scanning John Connor’s bedroom, and I wanted to do this dance-like movement through the room instead of ripping it apart. He was like, ‘Oh, that’s great.'”
But other times, Patrick’s suggestions hit a brick wall. “I got on his nerves a couple times, and he admonished me” the actor says, chuckling. “I was just so eager to please, man. I really wanted to step up to the challenge he presented me with. But there were definitely instances where I went, ‘Damn, he’s pissed.’ But overall, we had a great working relationship, and he’s a wonderful guy.”
Maybe because of his age, Furlong says he was largely spared from any vintage Cameron rages. “He was so nice to me,” the actor says. “I was really spoiled by having James Cameron be the first director I worked with; he runs a tight ship, knows exactly what he wants, and expects you to be on your A-game. But I never felt any immense pressure; I’ve heard [about his temper] from other people, but for me personally, I loved working with him.”
Furlong also credits Cameron with helping him adjust to the biggest challenge facing any novice actor: while you generally watch a movie in chronological order, they’re almost never made that way. “I remember asking Jim, ‘Wait, we don’t shoot this in order?'” he says, remembering how he spent his first day on set filming a scene from much later in the film where John and the T-800 are in the desert working on their broken-down truck. Right after that, they moved directly to a dramatic moment where John ponders the future of humanity, asking: “We’re not going to make it, are we?”
“That was so surprising to me as a kid, and Jim had to explain to me why we work that way,” Furlong says now. “I don’t think I’ve ever shot a movie in order, and my first experience learning about that was on one of the biggest movies ever made.”
Back to the future
Even as T2 kick-started the Terminator franchise, it also marked Cameron’s exit from his own brainchild. The last Terminator-adjacent project he helmed as a director was the 1996 theme park attraction, T2-3D: Battle Across Time, which played at three Universal Studios parks — Florida, Hollywood, and Japan — into the 2010s. “That was basically our sequel to T2,” says Patrick, who shot new material for the 3D-enhanced production alongside Furlong, Hamilton, and Schwarzenegger.
While Cameron initially teased that Battle Across Time would set up a planned third film, a prolonged behind the scenes battle over the franchise rights — not to mention the success of a little movie called Titanic — led him to walk away. Schwarzenegger moved ahead with Terminator 3 under the direction of Jonathan Mostow even as his three costars fell away. Sarah Connor is dead as T3 begins, while John is now played by Nick Stahl, who took over from Furlong as the actor battled personal problems, including drug addiction.
“I f–ked up,” he admits candidly. “I had a contract for T3, but I broke it. Nick is a great actor, so I can’t think of anyone better who could it. But that’s always been a soft space in my heart.”
Furlong eventually got his chance to return to the Terminator-verse in the Cameron-produced Terminator: Dark Fate, which reset the timeline and junked follow-ups like T3, Terminator: Salvation, and Terminator: Genisys. That 2019 film opens with Skynet finally succeeding in its plan to kill John, only to see a new messiah arise in his place. “The fact that Jim called me back to do that meant a lot,” Furlong says. “I got to take back the mantle a little bit.”
And both Furlong and Patrick would eagerly answer the call again if Cameron decides to helm another Terminator movie. “I wouldn’t want to do that role without James being at the helm,” emphasizes Patrick. “If he had done another movie and wanted me to do it, I would have. But that never happened.”
For the record, Patrick says that he’s also open to reprising his role as alien-hunting FBI agent John Doggett in Ryan Coogler’s upcoming X-Files revival starring Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel. “Doggett is my most beloved character because he’s a protagonist,” the actor says. “I didn’t get too many opportunities to be a protagonist after T2. Once you’re an antagonist, you’re sort of always an antagonist!
“In fact, everyone always thought that Doggett was going to turn evil because of that baggage,” Patrick adds with a chuckle. “But all credit to Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, and Vince Gilligan for writing a great character. They did a fabulous job giving me ways to demonstrate that he’s really a good guy that was going to look after Scully. So if I ever got to play him again, that’s an opportunity I would jump on.”
