PEOPLE YOU WOULDN'T THINK I'VE MET, BUT I HAVE#11 ARNOLD ALOIS SCHWARZENEGGER

I was looking forward to meeting Arnie.
I wasn't aware then that he was a right-wing arsehole at the time. I just thought he was a big bloke that couldn't act. But I hoped he'd had a sense of humour. Surely someone making that much money out of that little talent would have a sense of humour?
He must have!
He didn't.
It was 1994, and the magazine I was working for had a page called "Can You Handle It?" in which a celebrity had to face 20 tongue-in-cheek questions about their career.
I'd prepared the questions myself with the help of a couple of colleagues, and we had managed to get half an hour set aside in the big man's busy schedule.
I never liked interviewing celebrities with their public relations people present, since a) I don't like people listening to what I say when I'm not talking to them, and b) public relations people make relations with the press and public as difficult as possible by interupting the moment the celebrity is going to say something interesting.
With Arnie things were slightly different.
There was a PR girl, but she looked nervous. PR people only look nervous if something is up, but there wasn't a problem, not yet, anyway.
And then there were Arnie's security guys.
Now don't get me wrong, even then Arnie was a massive star. He was over to promote the movie True Lies.
The year before, the makers of Arnie's previous movie, The Last Action Hero, were arrogant enough to open it opposite Jurassic Park, which was the movie phenomenom of the decade, wiping all box office records and leaving TLAH as one of the biggest flops of the year.
Added to that, it wasn't a very good movie.
But to have three security guards present while you were being interviewed seemed excessive. You already had the building security of London's Cafe Royale where the interview was taking place, which had obviously been upped for the presence of their American guest.
Then the usual name checks, etc, and then through to the interview room, which let's face it didn't hold a tiny vulnerable person, but held a guy who is pretty fucking big.
Christ, I thought, this is not what I wanted, not with these questions.
One nervous jittery unhappy PR girl, and three blokes who look like they used to work with Jack Bauer at CTU, with headphones, walkie-talkies, and very sensible shoes.
Arnie is sitting in what can only be described as a throne. They have these chairs in old London hotel foyers and the like, red velvet seats and ornate gold-painted carved frames.
No one sits in them because you look like you're pretending to be a king, and well, that's a bit stupid.
Arnie sat in one.
After the introductions, things are already going badly. At the time, I thought it was me, but having seen Arnie interviewed several times since, I've noticed that he does it to other people too.
He looks at you, but through you.
A bit thousand-yard-stare-like, though not quite. Just like he's not connecting properly, thinking of something else, looking at someone else while he's looking at you. It's hard to explain. It just makes you feel like he's disappointed it's you he's talking to.
That's all I can say.
I've interviewed enough people in my time to know when someone wants to be there and when someone doesn't. This felt a bit more personal. Like he didn't want me to be there.
And I hadn't even asked a question yet.
These questions. These stupid stupid questions.
Here goes...
"Do you know what your surname is worth in scrabble?"
Silence.
He looks at me, then at the PR girl, then at the security guards, then puts on that look of not quite looking at anything.
I'd been taught a long time before not to worry about silence.
If you hold out long enough, eventually they will talk.
Eventually.
Just don't fill the void.
Don't crumble.
Silence in an interview is like a staring competition.
Speaking is like blinking first.
Wait for it.
He starts to sort of smile and grimace, in the way that you do when you you're trying to suck your teeth.
Wait for it.
Wait.
"No," he says. "Do you?"
I tell him no, I'm not that good at maths.
Next question.
I have 20 to get through in only 30 minutes. I have to press on.
"Is it true what they say about body builders, that while some muscles grow, others, well, don't?"
I give him a kind of man-to-man look at this point.
I'm talking about his cock.
"All of my muscles are in proportion," he says, almost with a smile.
I'm thinking the cock question means we may have connected. It's going to be ok. He's not going to kill me, he's going to take all these questions well, and we're going to get on fine.
Next question.
"Is there going to be a Last Action Hero 2?"
This one was a step too far. The pain of starring so recently in a big big flop was still making him and his ego flinch. He signalled to one security guard, then to another.
I felt a hand on my arm.
"Your time is up," said one of the guys.
I was escorted outside, along the corridor, into the lift, and as I was taken outside the Cafe Royal given a very precise shove.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is estimated to be the 4th wealthiest person in the entertainment industry with a personal fortune of $800,000,000.
His first act on being made governor of California was to repeal the recent increase in car tax and scrap the projects to help the state's poor that it was to fund.
I still like the Terminator movies, and I didn't really care about being thrown out of the interview.
But I think he's a cunt.