Lesley Chicott

directed a one-hour documentary about the greatest bodybuilder in history. She directed another one about one of Hollywood’s most successful action stars ever. And then there’s a third about one of the most surprising political careers of recent decades. The fact that all three are about Arnold Schwarzenegger is a reminder of how remarkable his life story is.

T

a three-part docuseries

entitled”

Arnold

” premieres on Netflix Wednesday and comes just after his first TV show “

FUBAR

,, also for the streamer. The documentary shows

everything from his unbearably inflated body in the 1970s to the endless death toll in movies like Conan the Barbarian, Terminator and Commando (and his forays into comedy, like Twins and Junior) to his environmental achievements as

California

governor between 2003 and 2011. It also features interviews with director James Cameron, who worked with him on the Terminator franchise and the action film True Lies, and former co-stars Danny DeVito, Linda Hamilton, Jamie Lee Curtis and Sylvester Stallone.

The famously future-oriented Schwarzenegger, 75, looks back on his life and multiple careers on the series. And unlike Pumping Iron, the 1977 documentary about professional bodybuilding that made him famous, it’s all about him. For Arnold, Schwarzenegger sat for hours conducting interviews discussing, between puffs of cigars, many of his achievements and his most notorious shortcomings, the dissolution of his marriage to Maria Shriver after she learned he had had an affair, and a child, with their housekeeper, Mildred Baena. The revelations came after a 2014 Los Angeles Times investigation.

The documentary also addresses the groping allegations made by several women

who came forward

in a 2003 investigation by The Times when Schwarzenegger ran for governor of California in the recall election, which he eventually won. He initially denied the allegations, but later gave a speech in which he said: I have behaved badly at times. In the documentary he speaks more clearly: forget all the excuses. This was wrong.

Carla Hall, one of the Times reporters who worked on the story, was also interviewed. In the documentary she says that when the story was running, people were very angry with us. People immediately accused us of holding the story until five days before the election. But she says it took so long to report the story and more tips poured in after that. Personally, I was surprised it didn’t have more of an effect on the election, she says.

Both Chilcott and Allen Hughes, the series’ executive producer, have worked on several documentaries over the years.

Chicott Chicott

was a producer of the Oscar-winning films An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman, and most recently directed a series about the Manson family, Helter Skelter: An American Myth, and the film Watson about Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Arnold is the second docuseries Hughes has worked on this year. He also produced Dear Mama, a five-part series about Tupac Shakur for FX. They recently spoke in separate video interviews about the making of the docuseries. The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

What attracted you to this project?

Hughes: It’s an incredible journey and the ultimate immigrant story. So I noticed how Arnold dealt with challenges after the first one

30

Years of his career were just winning, winning, winning.

And Conan the Barbarian blew me and my brother away when we were 9 or 10

,

so i was a fan of his movies but when i found out he was a republican i had mixed feelings about him. There’s so much complexity in it. He’s a great character, so I knew it was going to be a rich story.

That third episode about his political career was why I made the movie. A talent I was not aware of is his willingness to hear the other person’s side. I’ve seen him do it to me in real time. He may not agree, but he opens his heart and mind and he can change his mind.

Schwarzenegger’s voice dominates the course. Was he trying to control the subjects or the editing?

Chilcott: There are now many documentaries where the star commissions the project, but Arnold had no editorial control. What was important to me was that no topic was off the table and we got to all of his publicized failures or controversies.

This seemed to be the right time in his life when he knew he had to talk about things and was willing to do it. He seemed to understand that I will be remembered for my successes, but people also remember the failures.

Hughes: I told him: For this to resonate with people, you don’t have to love it, you just have to respect it. If you like it, it’s probably not good. He understood it from the start. He took 100% responsibility; he made no apologies.

He reflects somewhat on his affair and the end of his marriage, but less so on other topics ranging from his heart surgery [hes had three total] to films such as Batman & Robin, which he counted among his successes. [Batman & Robin was considered a box office disappointment when it was released in 1997 and was poorly received by film critics.]

Hughes: The challenge with Arnold is that he doesn’t see struggle as struggle. It wasn’t because he was trying to avoid it, it just wasn’t how he was wired. He is not a man who gets down or depressed. And it’s just not his nature to wallow. His tolerance for pain was so high. He talks about forced reps and you don’t start counting reps until it’s hard and painful. He also talks about that in life.

Chilcott: He reveals who he is by being like that. I was really happy that he was as open as he was, like when he told me his body was giving up. The rest of us are always complaining about being out of shape, but imagine being The Body and then getting older. That’s a big thing for him to handle.

Obviously he made some major errors of judgment, but when you have a great kid from an affair you can’t say I made a mistake. I wanted to show why he is reluctant to talk about these things because he doesn’t want to constantly hurt his family.

Have you tried to get Maria Shriver involved?

Chilcott: I was on point about it. There were plenty of clips of her out there. I tried to get hold of her and we had some talks but she refused.

Letting him talk and talk with minimal pushback can create a false impression of history. His views on the Ronald Reagan presidency and the

‘

The 80s and the violence in his films lack any nuance. Were you concerned?

Chilcott: It was Arnold’s world

;

he tells the story of his life. We have tried to make her position clear. You mentioned Batman & Robin, he rewires everything to see everything as a success. That’s who he is.

He really thought Reagan was the one who had a Reagan poster on his wall. He believes the whole American Dream thing to its core.

You spend a lot of time on his years as governor, which is ultimately the most important part of his legacy. You focus a lot on his environmental policies, but I was surprised to hear about his nomination of women and minorities and non-prosecutors as judges and his institution of open primaries and redistribution. But there I wanted more depth. Did you think about spending more time on his policies and politics as he moved from right to left of center?

Chilcott: It’s a good point. I agree with that. I asked for another episode, but at that point it was way too late. Hey won’t be again

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election largely because he worked on infrastructure, which isn’t sexy to talk about in a documentary, and he reached across the aisle and enacted political reforms like redistricting. That was a very big challenge. But there was so much and it couldn’t just become a laundry list, so we talked more about his style of governing.

Schwarzenegger has remained outspoken about political issues you show him promoting the Covid

COVID

vaccine, sending an anti-Putin message to Russian civilians and soldiers via YouTubeand condemning the 6 Jan insurgents. But among Republicans, he was also a big critic of Donald Trump, which you never talk about. Why not

?

Chilcott: We talked about it, but it was just a factor of screen time, there are so many things to talk about.

Hughes: He talks about preserving democracy. He talks about growing up in Austria and those men coming home from the war on the losing side and he talks about broken men and the terrible ideology and being on the wrong side of history. And he talks about his father and he talks about abuse and violence.

Our job was to connect what he was born into and why he is in a unique position to speak about preserving democracy. I felt: let’s not mention Trump. He’s just a symptom of something bigger. He’s not the thing. When Arnold talks about preserving democracy, he understands because he comes from the other side. And it’s an eternal battle.