Arnold Schwarzenegger fears he helped give Donald Trump the tools to become U.S. President.
The movie star, who served as California’s Governor, is not a fan of the property tycoon-turned-leader, but he accepts he may have inadvertently given Trump advice and guidance on how to become popular.
“I remember that in the old days, when we went to the wrestling matches, the way he admired people with bodies, and the way they would jump around in the ring, and to perform physical stunts and stuff like that,” Arnie tells Men’s Health magazine. “He had great admiration for that.
“He asked me, ‘How do you do that, with the movies? I mean, it’s so believable’. He drilled down to specific questions that fascinated him. It was about how do you sell something like a scene: ‘How do you go and act out a scene so that I get affected emotionally?’ He was fascinated by that. ‘How do you do this when you do interviews – that you penetrate through it and you then are totally believable?’”
Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger is convinced Trump’s greatest failing as President mirrors his own as California’s Governor.
“I always complain about Trump not being able to shift from Trump to President,” he explains. “Well, the reason why I say this is because I saw that with myself, that I was not able to shift from Arnold to Governor. I was still stuck as Arnold. Arnold always gets things done.
“I forced my way in there, then I do it and do it and do it and do it, until it gets done. And I felt the same thing I can do with politics (sic). But I learned quickly that that’s really not the way it works. You got to be able to bring people together. It takes much more time, much more effort, but that’s just the way it is. If you don’t like that, don’t get into politics.”