3. Versatility
Normal people will tell you that Arnie has made a career playing the same character over and over again, but that's the talk of somebody with their mind closed and the music turned up to boring. In this modern era of people clamming to be alternative and far-out, it makes more sense to generate offbeat opinions so that you seem different and more people will like you. "He just plays a big dumb guy with a gun every time," those dullards might say when you're righteously trying to argue Arnie's case. Wrong. What about the hidden depths that you might not consider straight away? I mean, the man has played some dumb brutes, of course, but he's also played - wait for it - a DOCTOR. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's one of the most intelligent professions in the world. You have to study for 7 years to be a doctor and Arnie just acted it like it was nothing. He also played a SOLDIER and managed to convince everyone that he'd had extensive military training - everybody thought he knew how to hide in that mud in
Predator because of training but it was just acting. If that's not enough to sway you, how about CONSTRUCTION WORKER? The way he used that pneumatic drill in
Total Recall looked realistic to me. If you're still unconvinced, remember, too, that he's played a role so difficult and so interpretive that it's actually better to talk about it in a whisper. That's right: Arnie played a ROBOT. Anybody who thinks a role like that would be a cinch to act should take it up with IBM or a laboratory: they'd be the first to tell you that nobody even knows what it's like to be a robot, so Arnie actually had to think and imagine it by himself and then pretend to be one without anything to go by. Factor in the notion that he's also a robot from the
future, and you've got one of the most complex portrayals of any character ever put on screen.