Arnold on Creating The Terminator

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been doing interviews to promote his new Terminator movie, and he revealed an interesting tidbit in one of them. Arnold was recounting that when he first met with James Cameron to talk about doing the movie, Arnold told the director that he wanted to play the hero and not the Terminator. The Terminator has very few lines and it seemed, to Arnold, that playing the part wouldn't be that glamorous and exciting.

But what convinced Cameron that Arnold was perfect for the role was how much thought Arnold had already put into the way the Terminator should act and look. Arnold said that he told Cameron that the Terminator should be able to put together guns, disassemble them and load them without looking at them because, after all, he's a machine and would know how to do anything with weapons without looking at them.

I thought that was a very interesting tidbit. A great actor thinks about a character from the inside out, and finds ways to base a character's behavior, look and speech on what background the character has and what their personality is like (or, in this case, what they were built to do). These are the same things that a great actor, writer, storyboard artist or animator (etc.) can bring to a character in order to bring characters to life and make them specific and memorable. These are the kind of deep personality traits that make characters feel alive and real.

The Terminator may seem like a silly example to point out, but I thought it was an interesting insight into the thought Arnold put into the character, and I think that kind of thinking is probably what makes the Terminator a memorable character (and keeps the franchise going after all these years).

I see a lot of storyboard portfolios (and storyboards in general), and the ones that always seem to excite people and interest them are the ones where the artist has done this kind of thinking. Sometimes artists will board in a way that is simply moving the characters around the screen as they perform actions in a straightforward way. These kinds of boards never really work because there's nothing special or interesting about them. They aren't entertaining or surprising. On the other hand, when an artist invests the characters with personality and finds mannerisms and behaviors that showcase these traits, invests all the character's movements with his or her personality, and when the artist exploits these things for entertainment, the sequence begins to shine and the characters come to life.

So as you create your own characters (or board on a film or TV show), get to know your characters in a deep way. What makes them tick? What are they like? How do they think? What is their background like? And ask yourself how you can dig deep inside them to find mannerisms, behavior and expressions that match who they are and what they're about. You'll be happy with the results, I promise, and your work will be richer, deeper and more entertaining.