Any self-respecting fan of action cinema has done an Arnold Schwarzenegger impression at least half a dozen times in their life, and it helps that the Austrian icon has a back catalogue stuffed with some of the most famous one-liners in movie history. Whether you prefer a simple ‘I’ll be back,’ a more animated ‘get to the choppah!’ or you go full-blown Kindergarten Cop and scream ‘It’s not a toomuh!’ right in people’s faces, there’s just something so enjoyable about mimicking Arnie’s signature brogue.
One of his most quip-heavy outings is John McTiernan’s classic Predator, quite possibly the manliest film ever made, with a crew of huge dudes duking it out in the jungle with a dreadlocked extra-terrestrial boasting technology far superior to even the sheer volume of testosterone seeping out from the screen.
Not just one of the 73 year-old’s best efforts, it’s also one of the greatest action movies ever made and remains as rewatchable today as it was when it first stomped onto the big screen 33 years ago. In a recent interview, though, the Terminator legend revealed that he improvised one of Predator‘s most well known lines, and had it worked into the script.
“It was really amazing when we finally showed the Predator. It was so well done. It was really tall, they had a basketball player that was like seven-foot-two that was carrying this mask and its outfit. It looked scary, it looked slimy, it looked weird. It looked so bad that it came natural to me to say, ‘You are an ugly motherf*cker’. That came kind of natural. It was kind of improvised, that line. And then they kept it in the movie.”
Variations of the line have made it into pretty much every Predator movie since, although they’ve become so blatant that you fully expect whoever delivers it to stop, turn to the camera and wink at the audience. If 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg is indeed setting his reboot in the distant past with a Native American female warrior at the center of the story, though, then maybe we won’t hear it the next time the titular alien is seen on the big screen in a refreshing change of pace.
