Who were the actors in the running to play the role of the Terminator?
Two actors were seriously considered for the role of “The Terminator”: Lance Henrikson and O.J. Simpson. • Lance Henriksen was originally considered for the role of The Terminator. Writer/director James Cameron even made early sketches showing The Terminator looking like Henriksen. The original concept was for the character to be able to blend into a crowd. • O.J. Simpson was considered for the role of the Terminator, but the producers feared he was “too nice” to be taken seriously as a cold-blooded killer. JC, in a meeting with Arnold Schwarzenegger to talk about the role of “Kyle Reese” (see question #6 above), made the decision to cast Arnold as “The Terminator”. Of course, Arnold was adamant that he should be the Terminator! JC decided that a Terminator should look like Arnold. So, Lance Henriksen was cast in the role of Det. Vukovich. (JC still was able to create a Terminator that blended in when he cast Robert Patrick for the T-1000 role in the T2 movie).
