Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator 2 Makeup Made His Daughter Cry

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Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most famous character traumatized his young daughter on the set of Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The second film in the Terminator franchise was a critical and commercial success that managed to eclipse the original. The movie, which starred Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, and Edward Furlong, won several Oscars and is still considered one of the best sequels of all time.

Judgment Day recast Schwarzenegger’s villainous Terminator from the first film as the hero and protector of John Connor (Furlong). Sarah Connor (Hamilton) becomes reluctant allies with the Model 101 Terminator as they fight to save John from the more advanced T-1000 model and preserve John’s future as the leader of the resistance against Skynet, the AI that will eventually cause the apocalypse. James Cameron's Terminator 2 is often considered the best film in the franchise, with the film containing plenty of emotion, action, and incredible special effect sequences. The make-up and special effects kept the film entertaining for the audience, but Schwarzenegger's daughter felt differently.

On Wednesday, Schwarzenegger crashed Yahoo's Kindergarten Cop reunion with the cast of former child actors and reflected on how his own kids would react to being on set. He recalled that for the most part, his children with wife Maria Shriver loved seeing him in action on the set of his big-budget films -- except for his daughter Katherine, who "was crying, always, the first few movies." He said:
 

 

"Maria would come out to the set when we were in the middle of shooting Terminator 2. And so she saw me when half of the face was gone and the eye was lighting up and all that. All this kind of weird makeup, so she started screaming and crying on the set because she didn’t understand why daddy looked like that."

The former California governor joked that he "never, ever thought" that Katherine would grow up to marry an actor, based on her extremely adverse reaction to seeing her dad at work. As it turns out, that wasn’t the case, as Katherine grew up to marry an action star of her own: Chris Pratt. The couple wed in 2019, and this year welcomed their first child together. Schwarzenegger expressed delight at the turn of events, calling Pratt a "wonderful husband to her and such a great son-in-law."

Elsewhere in the reunion, Schwarzenegger praised his younger castmates and credited them with helping to prepare him for fatherhood. As it happens, Shriver had given birth to Katherine shortly before production began on Kindergarten Cop. He also shared his memories of the famous "It’s not a tumor" line. According to Schwarzenegger, the kids would crack up at his delivery of the line, even as the large, intimidating man was shouting it. He remembered director Ivan Reitman telling him, "If the kids are laughing at the way you sound, then I think the audience will laugh, too."

Schwarzenegger certainly had the right idea for what made the comedy so enduring. Ironically, what also made Kindergarten Cop work was placing an actor known for his role as a terrifying villain (the kind that would make a child cry) in a room full of kids. In fairness to his daughter, though, Katherine Schwarzenegger couldn’t have been more than a year old when she visited her dad on the set of Terminator 2: Judgement Day; it makes sense that she would burst into tears!