20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Never Knew About The Terminator Franchise

9. Billy Idol Was Cameron's First Non-Biehn Pick For The T-1000

Owen Sweeney/AP After the idea of re-casting Biehn as the T-1000 was dropped, Cameron looked elsewhere in search of his actor. First, he looked to the music industry, and toyed with the idea of casting Blackie Lawless from heavy metal group WASP. Lawless's 6 ft 3 in frame proved a problem, however, as Cameron wanted the T-1000 to be of average height, in contrast to the bigger and more conspicuous T-800. Cameron then had the idea of hiring punk rocker Billy Idol as his antagonist, and the idea went pretty far. Storyboards for T2 actually depict Idol as the T-1000, and it seems Idol was all set to take the job until a motorbike accident left him with a broken leg, rendering him unable to do T2's more physical scenes. The window of opportunity was then left open for Patrick.
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Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1