BY DANIEL BAIG | Before I start with the interview with Arnold inside his trailer, I have one more detail to share about the Crystal Peak set which I realized I had left out of my second installment after I submitted it to be posted. One other thing Sheryl pointed out to us inside the giant fake chamber was a small slightly elevated stage, which was where, in the course of the movie, a very important broadcast would be made from, with, she told us, a giant American flag[not there now] as a backdrop behind the people addressing the nation.

Okay, now back to where we left off: our merry band of internet reporters had just been told it was okay to head into A.S. trailer. When I walked in, Arnold was just getting up from a table. Sitting opposite him on the other side of the table was his little boy Christopher. On the table in between them was a chess board; a game appeared to be well under way. I could hardly believe it, though  Christopher appeared to be a very young boy yet.

Were you just playing chess with him?? I asked Mr. Schwarzenegger.

Yeah, yeah. He knows all the moves. He takes chess lessons. Hes a champion.

Also on this subject (his clever and cute kid), the proud dad told us, He amazed me this morning. I was laying around with him, he was sitting in the back and I asked him in German, whats two and two and whats one and two, all the way up to 10. And he had all the answers. And hes four years old!

So hes bilingual? I said. German and English both?

Well, Im working on it. Im the only one that speaks to him in German, so its not a 100 percent thing, you know. Its like he can identify and say all the body parts, the numbers. He knows the numbers better than in English, in German, you know. Hes really, really smart.

Hes pretty big for four! I observed. (When Arnold had said Christophers age a moment ago, I was surprised, because the boy seemed taller than a typical four year old. Then again, Im not exactly an expert on the average relative heights of the different stages of childhood.)

Yeah. Quite big.

The proud papa, dressed in shorts, sandals, and a polo shirt, seemed quite tired. Not sleepy tired, but weary, as probably befitted someone whod just finished a long, grueling, extremely physically intensive shoot. He shook all of our hands as we introduced ourselves to him one by one. Im not a very big guy, and I have pretty small hands; it was definitely kind of weird, but also kind of neat, to feel my hand for a moment get swallowed up in the big fleshy grip of the T-800.

He was quite a gracious host to us. When we first came in, Arnold set up chairs himself for all of us, made sure everybody had a seat and was in a good position to talk to him, and asked if we cared for anything to drink! Everybody else was being polite and saying, Oh, no, thanks. Were fine. But I was too hot and thirsty (well, it was pleasantly air-conditioned cool inside the trailer, but it had been real hot outside) to be shy, so I said I wouldnt mind a water. Suddenly, a bunch of the rest of the gang changed their minds and asked for drinks too. (Arnold, already seated and surrounded by us, let someone else hand us the drinks from the refrigerator.)

While everyone was getting settled, I noted how nice and comfortable the trailer seemed. Directly in front of me was a media center, dominated by a very large flat screen TV. At one point during the interview, Christopher, restless and bored, opened a cupboard beneath the television. Inside were a lot of CDs and videos  kids videos (Disney animated movies).

When we first were seated and getting started, music was playing softly through the trailer. It was that classic hit from 1964, Petula Clarks Downtown. Which, light, airy, happy, upbeat pop confection that it is, struck me as a very funny contrast to the explorations of violence, mayhem, and destruction that we were all there to discuss, the Terminator series. I smiled at this rather incongruous musical accompaniment, but nobody else seemed to notice.

Some of the other writers did, however, clearly seem to be getting impatient with the questions and answers centering on the topic of Christopher. Seizing the first possible opportunity to swing the conversation towards what we were supposed to be talking about, a pudgy, excruciatingly annoyingly high-pitched and nasally-voiced correspondent asked,

So howd the big fight go yesterday?

Arnold replied, Um . . . everything has gone really extraordinarily well, except it took a little bit more time, I think, than anyone expected, because there were so many visual effects shots. And then you have to break it up so much  you know, you make one move, and then when you, when someone flies through the room . . . theres really no one flying through the room. So then they, you know, set it up for a big master shot so you can see the whole room. Then you have to go and do the landing up in the corner, and then fly falling down, so thats a separate shot. And then, you know, then where you fall, when you fall on the bottom, you know  its a lot of cuts.

Because of the visual effects it took much longer than we expected, but its going to be a real spectacle because we have never really seen, you know, a fight scene of two people  that are actually machines  one weighs two thousand pounds, and one a thousand pounds. You know, for every move you make, towards any piece of wall, or door, or anything, [it] immediately breaks  so everything has to be rigged in such a way.

Like for instance, theres a scene where I grab her by the jaw, lift her up in the air, and then just throw her down on the ground. So as soon as I throw her down on the ground, the tile, the tiles on the ground have to break. And then I lift my foot up really high and just, you know, step down on her head. And that then makes her whole head crush into the below the floor of the bathroom.

You have to rig all that stuff . . . then you have to cut, you know, then you have to put the dummy down because I cant step on her head otherwise it breaks her nose [laughs]. . . So you know you have to split it up, all those things. Its really, like, extraordinary to see the effect it has when two of those machines [are] letting loose in a small quarters like a bathroom area there, and you know, what happens to the walls, you know, to the ceilings, to the pipes. I mean, you know, basically, you know . . . uh, [I] throw her against  theres one scene where they throw her against the toilet bowl and the whole thing just explodes and water shoots out everywhere. . . Like its said, whenever you cause some damage, youve to show also the effect of it. You know, the water coming out, the gas from the gas pipes, water pipes, and all this stuff, sparks flying . . . it takes a lot of setup time and work.

Although I was listening to all of this with interest, I also could hardly prevent myself from interrupting Arnolds fairly lengthy discourse to ask him about something he had said midway through his answer. So as soon as he finished, before someone else asked a question which would surely move the conversation elsewhere  actually, a couple of the other guys also immediately started asking a question, but I was louder , I blurted out,

How did you film lifting her up by her chin??

Um . . . she just, uh  first of all you have to do a lot of lifting, and second of all she has to assist, like in professional wrestling. Assist through the whole thing, gain a certain momentum so you can get it straight up, lifting your arm up like that [demonstrates]. Then turn around, and then throw the head down, and then you have a mattress below. Its actually the stunt girl that does that, but I mean, she is, you know, it really looks unbelievable when you see it.

Someone then asked him, Can you set up the fight sequence  exactly where it takes place, and is it the end of the film?

No, actually, its not on the end of the film. Its, I think its around two-thirds into the movie, approximately. And we are at a building, and its just one of those places, things where she wants to get someplace at the same time. We want to get to the same place. Who gets there first , and then we just happen to crash into each other. We meet in the hallway, with a very simple, innocent meeting in the hallway that then went, you know, absolutely out of control.

It was time to hear from Mr. Nasal and Reedy: Do you have to get over the chivalry aspect of you dont want to hit women?

Uh, no because I mean, the thing is, you realize that, you know, youre playing a machine and not really a female  looks like a female but in fact is not. And the male, it looks like a male, but is not. You know, so that its just a machine. You know, they dont have, you know, the sex organs that identifies man and women. You know, theyre neuter, theres no reason for them having sex organs and stuff. . . They come to this world, and theyre sent back  theres specific reasons why they look the way they do, so they can blend in, and become just one of the human beings. Thats the way she has arrived, so she can dress like a model and, or like a woman, and be very disarming. But immediately when she touches you, you know, kills you, and takes on your look and your personality and everything like that, and become very effective this way. So you know, but it is, in the end, a machine. A machine fighting.

But visually, you know, it makes it interesting because it is visually a man fighting against a woman. Where the woman actually ends up being, you know, extremely sophisticatedly strong, because her abilities of fighting are much greater than mine. Im, you know, a model that still works well, but is definitely an outdated model . . . There have been new models.

So no sex for the Terminator? the lone female reporter among us asked.

No. Sorry to say! I mean, again I was robbed of the opportunity.

Now, I saw The Terminator. I distinctly remember that when the T-800 first heads towards civilization, still naked, it was pretty obvious that at that point Arnold Schwarzenegger was not a big enough star yet to have negotiated a no nudity clause in his contract. So I had to object now to this bit of revisionism about terminators not having sex organs.

You had sex organs in the first movie, though, I point out.

In the first Terminator?

Yeah.

I did?

Well, you can see them from a distance.

Oh, you observed from a distance? He smiles, a bit incredulously. Everyone has begun to laugh loudly.

Did you put them on slo-mo? The laughter has gotten really loud; Im laughing myself in embarrassment.

Arnolds laughing too, enjoying prolonging my pain. You just  you just got busted on that one! I cant believe it!

Although there were no mirrors around, Im sure if I had been able to see myself at this point Id have been able to tell you that I had now turned a color most commonly associated with lypocene-rich fruits.

The reporter next to me playfully punches me in the arm, shaking his head in merry disbelief at my indiscreet comment.

Arnold mercilessly goes on: He [me] says, Wait a minute, let me stop here

The former Conan is now simultaneously with his joking imitating me, miming a guy working a VCR remote control.

He [me] pauses the movement  There! I see a little bit  something there. God! [He shakes his head in one last gesture of amused disbelief]

My humiliation is complete.

NEXT: Does the Terminator bust some kung fu moves in Rise of the Machines?? And  True Lies 2?