Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: Actor Says Being Cast As Terminator Was A 'Breakthrough' In His Career

Hollywood action star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has appeared in a lot of successful films, but "The Terminator" franchise will always have a soft spot in his heart.

"To me, Terminator has been an extremely important franchise," he said during an interview with Yahoo! Movies. "I remember when I first did the first Terminator, it was really the first action movie where I didn't have to take off my clothes."

Schwarzenegger, 68 reprised his role as the Terminator slash Guardian in this year's "Terminator: Genisys" movie alongside franchise newbies Emilia Clarke as the new Sarah Connor and Jai Courtney as the new Kyle Reese. Jason Clarke, meanwhile portrayed their son John Connor.

The new movie, which was directed by Alan Taylor presented a new twist to the well-loved franchise by turning the hope of the resistance into the villain.

Looking back, Schwarzenegger noted that the franchise was "an important breakthrough" in his career. And even though he was nude in the film, it was only "just for a few minutes," and for the rest of the film, he was fully clothed.

"The body was not the most important thing," he noted.

"The Terminator" movie was also the first role Schwarzenegger took as the villain.

Prior to that, he was best known for his role as the title character in the "Conan the Barbarian" fantasy action series, where he wore just a loincloth.

He also appeared as a bodybuilder in the 1976 drama comedy "Stay Hungry" and the 1969 fantasy adventure called "Hercules in New York."

Schwarzenegger is pretty good with comedy too, since he is unforgettable in his roles in the films "Twins" and "True Lies." For the former, it was actually Schwarzenegger who insisted that they get Danny DeVito to play his twin brother in Ivan Reitman's film.

"He's a great chef," he said. "So when you have lunch, you go many times to his trailer and he cooks pasta and meatballs and all that kind of stuff. And he also had great stogies, so we smokes some really great cigars."

In "True Lies," Schwarzenegger starred alongside Jamie Lee Curtis. The two played husband and wife, and in the film, the wife became suspicious that her husband might be cheating on her, but all he was really hiding from her was his secret agent job. One of the highlights of the film was Curtis' sexy dance and Schwarzenegger agrees: "It was a fun scene to watch. She's a gorgeous-looking woman, she did a great job the way she danced."