Arnold Schwarzenegger Gets Candid on Career, Failures, Aging: “My Plan Is to Live Forever”

Arnold Schwarzenegger had a ritual.

The “Austrian Oak” would stare at his naked body in the mirror as if he were a living work of art, a figure to be sculpted to perfection by lifting hundreds of pounds of iron in endless repetition. His goal was to shatter bodybuilding records and then become Hollywood’s biggest action star — and it worked. Now, decades later, when Schwarzenegger sees his 75-year-old body, what does he like about it? “Nothing!” Schwarzenegger says, smiling yet serious. “My whole life I look at the mirror and see the best-built man, and all of a sudden I see a bunch of crap. It’s terrible! You get these wrinkles under your eyes. You get wrinkles under your pecs. You see the fucking poodle!” The poodle? “Budle,” he corrects. “It’s Austrian for your stomach sticking out. Where the fuck did that come from? It’s not pleasurable. But you cope with it.”