Cigar Aficionado

Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the most famous people on the planet, a champion who has conquered a host of worlds, from bodybuilding to the movies and politics. He made history in 1967 as the youngest to ever win the coveted title of Mr. Universe, then became one of the world’s biggest movie stars with such hits as The Terminator, Twins, Predator and True Lies. He seemed to be on top of the world, but in reality he was just warming up, as he then moved into politics, becoming the governor of California in 2003. Today, at the age of 76, the man once known as The Terminator has become The Motivator, as Schwarzenegger has just released a book on self-help and inspiration called Be Useful. He also publishes a daily newsletter called Arnold’s Pump Club, and is fresh off a three-part Netflix documentary about his amazing life.

Schwarzenegger is also one of the world’s most passionate cigar smokers, and he has enjoyed cigars regularly since the 1970s. This is the record fifth time he has been on the cover of Cigar Aficionado, but while we have told his story before, this is the first time Schwarzenegger has ever sat down for an interview with Marvin R. Shanken, editor and publisher of the magazine. On a sunny day in October, Schwarzenegger visited Shanken at his offices in New York City. The two lit up Punch Churchills from Cuba that had been rolled 30 years ago, and sat down for an extensive, candid and remarkable discussion about world affairs, Schwarzenegger’s life and so much more. 

Shanken: So first of all, I want to thank you for being here. You have been on the cover four times already, and this will be your fifth, which obviously is a record. To us you are an iconic representative of a person who loves cigars, and our 1.7 million readers are going to read it word for word, cover to cover, and they’re all going to enjoy this next hour together.

I want to start with something a little basic—how does a person go from being an unknown kid growing up in Austria to a world champion bodybuilder to a superstar movie actor to the governor of the largest state in the United States and today have become such a famous, successful person? How does that happen?

Schwarzenegger: Well, there are a lot of elements that play into that. There is the element of being a very driven person, and always having a clear vision of where I wanted to go. There is the element of upbringing, after the Second World War. My upbringing was very strict. I had a very tough father, who was sometimes physical and smacked us around. I wanted to escape from that home, so that created a fire in the belly, and then it had something to do with America, because none of the successes would have happened if I wouldn’t have come to America. This is the No. 1 place in the world, with the greatest opportunities, and I was very fortunate to make that dream of coming to America a reality.

But the key thing was that there was a very clear vision from the beginning. When I saw Hercules movies as a kid, I said to myself: I want to look like that. I want to be like that. Then, by coincidence, I picked up a bodybuilding magazine that had Reg Park, that very same guy that was in those Hercules movies on the cover, and it said here is how Mr. Universe became Hercules. I said oh my God, this is the blueprint of how to get there. So I bought the magazine right away and I followed those principles.

I followed his training program. I trained five hours a day, and I made it. At the age of 20, I became the youngest Mr. Universe ever, and then I learned if you have a vision and you don’t listen to the naysayers and if you work your ass off then you can make it. These are three of the rules that I mentioned in the book that really helped me to get me where I am. And then I copied those rules to the next career, to show business.

Shanken: Did you desire to be in the movies? How did that come about?

Schwarzenegger: I saw those Hercules movies and I said to myself this guy won Mr. Universe and then somehow he was discovered—because of his muscles—to be in those movies. I said maybe I can do the same thing. I will become a world champion in bodybuilding and then I can be in the movies. And that’s why I chose to come to America because I wanted to go to Los Angeles, because it was known for Muscle Beach and was also known as the mecca not only of bodybuilding but also movies. The only problem was, that when I came to America and when I became the greatest bodybuilder of all time in the ’70s, muscle men were not in. When the agents went to represent me they said Arnold, are you crazy? You weigh 250 pounds, it’s too big, no one wants you in a movie. Then I went to a studio producer and he said forget about it, it’s not going to happen.

Shanken: Forget about it?

Schwarzenegger: Forget about it. You’re going to be a leading man? It’s not going to happen. Dustin Hoffman is in now, Al Pacino, Woody Allen, it’s all little guys, small guys. Big guys are not needed today anymore. The ’60s are over, the Hercules movies era is over, why don’t you just go and build a health foods store or a gymnasium.

Shanken: So what was the great break, where you went from being an actor in movies to a superstar?

Schwarzenegger: First of all, what was important for me was that I believed 100 percent, that I could see me being another Clint Eastwood. I could see me being another Charles Bronson. So when they said no and when they said it’s impossible it actually gave me fuel to show them that I can do it. To me, discouragement didn’t mean I ran the other way. Discouragement to me was fuel to get the job done. Unlike other people who need compliments to feel great, I need someone to say you can’t do it, it’s impossible.

Shanken: But what was the role that catapulted you to stardom?

Schwarzenegger: There was not really one role. Conan the Barbarian [1982] launched me into an international atmosphere, where the studio was willing to send me all over the world to promote the movie. But then what really brought the next level of eyes was Terminator [1984]. Terminator was a movie that showed me without showing really the body. People started offering me regular parts as an action movie hero. I got offered Commando, Predator, Running Man, Total Recall, the list went on and on, and all of those movies became more and more successful, and then all of a sudden I was among those action heroes that made a lot of money from the box office and was a reliable source of income for the studios. So I got hired over and over to do more action movies. The only thing was, my dreams changed a lot of times. So going from action hero, the only thing was to become a comedic kind of hero. So again the studios said are you crazy? We are making all this money with the action movies, why would we offer you a comedy? I said, well, I think I can do it. They said forget it. Luckily, I found this guy Ivan Reitman who had just finished directing Ghostbusters, and he said to me, I believe in you, I’m going to develop for you a project that will be very funny. And we got Danny DeVito and we did Twins [1988].

Shanken: Which was such a great movie.

Schwarzenegger: And that became actually more successful than all of my action movies together. Every one of my action movies made shy of $100 million, and Twins made $128 million, the first movie that ever made over $100 million for me at the box office. Then everybody started offering me comedies. Then I did Kindergarten Cop, True Lies, and all of those other movies.

Shanken: As an aside, Danny was also on the cover [twice]. Great guy.

Schwarzenegger: Great guy.

Shanken: So—we blink. Your second career. Now, all of a sudden you’re in politics. What would make you even think about, when you have so much going for you, that you want to go into public service, and lo and behold you’re the governor of the largest state in the United States?

Schwarzenegger: I was really doing well in acting, I was going up to the top, I was making No. 1 movies of the year, but throughout this whole time I met Maria [Shriver] in the ’70s. And she brought me home to her family, which was the Shriver family, the Kennedy family and all that. And there I heard all the time dialogue about public service and about the Special Olympics, about helping kids, helping people with their health care, helping people that don’t have enough money for legal aid, the poor, and all issues, issues, issues. And I said to myself I never thought about any of that. This is unbelievable that you have people that dedicate themselves to just how to help other people.

So I got more and more fascinated with that idea, I started reading up on it. I became the international coach in weight training for Special Olympians, and then President Bush appointed me to be the chairman of the President’s Council on Fitness. I then realized that we need more after-school programs, and I created an organization. And actually what I realized was this is addictive—to help other people. Which is not something that was in my vision at all. It really feels great when you come home at night and you’ve helped so many people. So I thought it was great, and one thing led to the next. When the recall election came up in California, I said wouldn’t it be cool to dedicate your whole life to helping a state, so I jumped into the race for governor.

Shanken: Did you jump in on your own, or did someone say to you why don’t you consider running?

Schwarzenegger: From the ’70s on, people said to me you should run for governor. And I don’t know why, because I had no interest in politics at that point at all, other than being a disciple of [Richard] Nixon, having listened to Nixon during the 1968 campaign against Humphrey. So people mentioned it a lot of times, but when the recall happened I said this is perfect, because I’m not right wing, I’m not left wing, I’m in the middle. That doesn’t play well in California with the primaries, because you have to be really to the right as a Republican. I said this is perfect: there’s a recall election, there will be no primaries, there will be no problem, I can go directly to the people and I can go and win. All I have to do is tell them my plan and be convincing. And that’s exactly what I did. I said it’s between me and the voters.

Shanken: What was your high moment after you were elected?

Schwarzenegger: When you are jumping on that train to be elected, you have no time to think. I went to get dressed to go to the victory party. And I walked by the television set and I heard the commentators saying Gov. Gray Davis has been recalled, and our new governor will be Arnold Schwarzenegger. When I heard that on the news, I literally had tears coming down my eyes. It was the most powerful thing that I had ever felt or heard. I am going to become the governor of a state that has 40 million people, it’s the No. 1 state in the United States, it’s the fifth-largest economy in the world. I am going to be the governor. It’s one thing to chase something, but it’s another thing to actually experience it. It reminded me of when I stood on the stage in London and I had won Mr. Universe at the age of 20. It was a very emotional moment, and it was also a moment where I recognized the fact once again that I never could have done it alone. And that’s why I tell people you can call me whatever you want, but don’t call me a self-made man. There were 5.8 million people who voted for me to be governor. Each one of those people made me governor. There’s all these people: Joe Weider who brought me to this country, he was the publisher of the muscle magazines. And there were the training partners, the acting coaches, there’s so many millions of people who helped me be where I am today. Only in America.

Shanken: On that same line of thinking, you probably haven’t read today’s paper. There was an amendment passed to change the Constitution so that now you don’t have to be born in America to become president. And there’s an election and you are now President Schwarzenegger. Congratulations.

Schwarzenegger: Thank you very much.

Shanken: And you’re only 76, so by comparison you’re like a kid. Now that you’re the president, there are problems all around us. What are some of your ideas to fix our country?

Schwarzenegger: The most important thing I think is to bring people together. Because you cannot go and start attacking specific things in education, healthcare and all this stuff—you have to first create an atmosphere to make everyone in Washington feel that they are part of a team. And no one is on the other side. The Democrats are as much loved as Republicans; right wingers as much loved as the left wingers. No matter how extreme they are. We are all part of the team. Yes, you have your beliefs—quite contrary to mine—but you’re all part of the team. And we only can win if we all play together. So let’s figure this out.

No different than what I did in California. I sat down and said let’s not fight over what we disagree on, let’s go and find out things we are for. The Democrats would talk about environmental issues. I said, you know something? I’m with you. But it’s important to do it the right way—to do it pro-business and not anti-business. When we said we want to reduce greenhouse gases and pollution 25 percent, we didn’t go and say to Caterpillar you cannot build that engine anymore. So we had to protect them, and we said you have 10 years to make a new engine. And we did it. And then when we had the bill signing, there were the environmentalists sitting next to the car manufacturers.

Shanken: What you talk about is very logical and very reasonable, makes a lot of sense, bringing both sides together for common goals, but how come nobody has done it? How come we are more divided than at any other time in history?

Schwarzenegger: Because people don’t come from that kind of a background. People come from a background that they are deeply rooted Democrats, and they always look at the other side their whole career as their enemy. And Republicans, the same thing. I don’t come from that political background. I come like you, I’m just a guy that just happened to be interested in doing some public service and jumped into the arena. I’ve made enough money, and to me it’s more important to serve the country. So that’s the mentality. When I grew up, Austria was a socialist country, so that’s what made me more conservative thinking, but I did not ever look at the other side as an enemy. I was married to a Democrat for 25 years. I did not look at them, nor did I look at the Kennedy family or the Shriver family as the enemy. I said they have great ideas, maybe not exactly the way I would solve the problem, but there were great ideas to help people. I think there’s just not enough emphasis paid. President Biden is trying every so often to do that, but it needs a whole energy. [President John F.] Kennedy was very good at that.

Shanken: President Schwarzenegger, what are you going to do to solve the problem of inflation?

Schwarzenegger: Not create it in the first place.

Shanken: But we have it.

Schwarzenegger: Government says, we just lowered inflation by two percent. But who created it? Who printed all this money? Who created the debt? The politicians. Now we have $35 trillion debt. And they say we should have student loan forgiveness, have more health care—

Shanken: So therefore we should?

Schwarzenegger: We should not be printing money all the time, and we should not live in debt. And who do they punish? Not the politicians. Ordinary folks.

Shanken: President Schwarzenegger, what are you going to do about out-of-control crime in America?

Schwarzenegger: I would be for tough law and order and supporting law enforcement.

Shanken: What about all the district attorneys who don’t lock people up anymore?

Schwarzenegger: I would have a campaign against that, because you cannot through kindness get rid of crime. It doesn’t happen. You have to have severe punishment, and you have to really let people know that if they commit those crimes they will go to jail. But all those liberal attitudes that are going on in cities now has backfired in a big way. We see the crime going up,  we see the killings going up, it is chaos in some of these big cities. If you look to Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Baltimore, Washington D.C.—I mean the capital of the United States is under siege. It’s ridiculous. And there’s some people running around talking about defunding the police. Yes we all recognize the police make mistakes, but you cannot go defund the police, and you can’t make the police the enemy. The criminals will always be the enemy.

Shanken: The southern border. The border wall. Immigration. Is it a problem?

Schwarzenegger: It’s a major problem. And remember I was governor and we sent 1,000 troops to the border to help them patrol the border. I think it has been a disaster since the late ’80s. And I don’t know why politicians—Democrats and Republicans—can’t get together and solve this problem. We know that we don’t hand out enough visas for workers. We have a limit. This is all bogus. If you look around in a restaurant and see who is working there, go to wine country, go to any construction site and see who is working there, it’s foreign workers. So why don’t we create a visa system that gives people a legal way of coming into this country and getting them a visa to work, so they don’t have to do something illegal? I’m a believer in a strong border, a secure border. And this all goes together, you cannot do one without the other. We need them, because the American people don’t want to do some of this work anymore. Let’s go and solve that. We are not talking here about evil people. Yes, I know Trump said there’s some bad people also coming in, which is true, but the majority of people are really good people who are hard-working people.

Shanken: We now have many threats outside of the United States. When the problem with Ukraine started, you produced a video where you wanted to talk to the people of Russia and the military of Russia, which was really compelling and really emotional. Why did you do it, and did it help?

Schwarzenegger: Sometimes you do something because it is in your blood, and you have to speak out. And so, I felt very strongly when the war began that it was an unjust and unprovoked war, and it was totally unnecessary. And the issues can be negotiated and don’t have to be done by killing innocent people. I’m talking about innocent people, even soldiers. Just because the leaders cannot get together and sit down and work this out. I’m no expert, I’m not Henry Kissinger, but I can tell you Russia has the right to be concerned when you talk about Ukraine becoming part of NATO. So there’s a dilemma. What I’m basically saying is, this is an issue about security—how do we solve it?

Shanken: So you’re the president. You go to Moscow, sit down with Putin—what do you say to him?

Schwarzenegger: This is a very hypothetical question. I don’t know about Putin, his strategy and what his complaints are. But somehow, this has to be resolved, because we cannot go on from one year to the next and just keep killing people. We are better than that. And I feel sorry for the Ukranian people who have to go through this misery, and I think this was an unprovoked war and it has to stop. Someone has to figure out how to get the Ukranians together, how to get NATO together, how to get the Russians together so that we can stop this killing. We always have to kind of think a little bit also how does the other side think. What do they need? You cannot only think what is best for us.

Shanken: Our government has given Ukraine more than $75 billion. There are a number of people who say we should be taking care of our problems at home, we can’t afford to support all these efforts. What do you say to these people?

Schwarzenegger: I think they have a very, very good argument. But you have to also think about the world. And you have to think about America staying strong in the world. But if you think about the $35 trillion in debt, I think we have to go and figure out a way of spending less and investing more in general. I don’t think this has anything to do with Ukraine; I think we have a spending problem in this country, not because of Ukraine. If Ukraine would not exist right now we would have the same $35 trillion in debt. That is really the issue here. I understand that people always say don’t spend money abroad, I totally get that, but you have to also think about the bigger vision, and say we have to go and make sure that we create stability all over the world and put out fires and help our friends when they are in need. It’s the same with Israel now: America has to go and support Israel 100 percent in those unprovoked attacks that just happened. I think we have to go and stand by them and not just think that means there’s less money for education, less money for healthcare and less money for this and that. It’s not because of our friends that we are supporting.

Shanken: I was just going to bring up, three days ago Israel was attacked, and President Biden has announced—rightfully so—we are going to support them with whatever they need. But it’s going to be more debt to finance all of these foreign wars. How do we control this? How do we get out of this? How do we make our world a safer place, a better place to live?

Schwarzenegger: This is why you have to elect the right people instead of sometimes having those bums that get elected that don’t deserve to be in office in Washington. Congress has an approval rating of 19 percent. You know that if any worker for you at Cigar Aficionado had a 19 percent approval rating they would be out. I can tell you in my office, or when I was governor, they were out when someone had that kind of a low approval rating and didn’t perform. The capital costs us, every year, around $3 billion. What do we get for this $3 billion that we’re spending? This is crazy, we don’t get anything, it’s poor performance.

Shanken: So it’s October 9. Is there anyone out there, who you feel has the qualifications and can lead us into the future?

Schwarzenegger: I think there’s a lot of people that are qualified, but the question is do they have the energy to do it, do they have the wisdom to do it? There are people in politics that know, for instance, that we have a problem with pollution. But they would rather go and satisfy the oil companies and not make a move, because they get paid by the oil companies. But with that mentality in mind and what’s going on right now, it takes more than that. We need to find the younger generation that can go and lead this country forward.

Shanken: Is there anyone in particular?

Schwarzenegger: I don’t endorse anybody, I’m not in that business. Even today, I am still waiting to see if someone is emerging that is an alternative.

Shanken: China, North Korea, Russia, Iran. Do you see one as a more significant problem for America than the others? And where do you see creating a peace in the future?

Schwarzenegger: You know it’s all about coexisting. I’m a big believer in live and let live. It’s not my way or the highway. Everyone has challenges. Russia has challenges economically, China has challenges economically, the United States has challenges economically, and so does the European Union. The question is how do we work together, and we all can benefit and we all can make money and we can all work together on these issues. It’s an art to do that. It’s not easy.

To stay away from each other, and not to talk and not to hang out together is the worst thing that we can do, because nothing gets accomplished this way. We’ve got to be together, and we got to have relationships. That’s the important thing.

My father-in-law, Sargent Shriver, he used to go for Armand Hammer to Russia when there was communism, the Soviet Union, and he made deals for oil. And I said to him, how did you go to the communists as an American and make them feel comfortable that you’re going to bring a good deal? He said it’s all about finding a common interest. He said, I met the guy that was in charge of oil in Russia, and when I had dinner with him I never talked business, I found out that he has children, and he loves fishing, cigars, so we started talking about those things. I invited him to come to Hyannis Port to go fishing with me. He immediately invited me to go fishing with him. We forged this relationship before we ever did business. He’s a father and he’s concerned, so concerned about his children, and I am so concerned about my kids. And one thing led to the next and we worked out great, great deals. He said to us, you have to find common things, and then you realize you are human beings like everyone else. It doesn’t matter if you are from China, from Russia, if you are from America, you need to work on a human level rather than just seeing each other as the enemy.

Shanken: We’re talking about leadership. Earlier, I showed you three humidors and I’d like you to spend a few minutes, whatever comes into your mind [on the men who once owned them.] First on JFK.

Schwarzenegger: He was a great leader. And he was in the center. He was not some left-wing nut. He knew that you had to cater to business. He knew that you had to cater to the military. He knew that you had to cater to the people who took care of the social programs. He knew how to bring it all together. He was terrific. Everything I read about him. I think he was a fantastic president. I put him in the same category as Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington, Reagan, all of those guys are in the same kind of a group.

Shanken: Sir Winston Churchill.

Schwarzenegger: Great, great leader. I have to laugh about it, because my mother, the day he died, which was when I was in Austria, my mother said ‘thank God—that bastard.’ Because they won the war. So the Austrians were all hating him. Not all of them, but I remember my mother was very happy about it, when he passed away. I became a big fan of his, so that’s the very funny thing about the next generation. My father fought in the Nazi war, and I’m going to Auschwitz and trying to put the spotlight on it and saying this should never ever, happen again. This is one generation later, so this is where I am coming from. I think these were great, great leaders and I hope that eventually we get those kind of leaders back—that we have another generation of leaders like that. Yes, they had their problems. Reagan had the huge challenge, taking over after the Carter administration, talk about the master of making inflation come under control, and to bring employment back and to make the businesses boom again and to bring the economy back it’s an unbelievable, sensitive balancing act to do that. And he did it. And so I am just looking for another generation of great leaders like that.

Shanken: And the third humidor—

Schwarzenegger: The third humidor is Milton Berle.

Shanken: No, Fidel Castro. Milton Berle was not a great leader—he was a great comedian [laughs].

Schwarzenegger: Well, he helped me do comedy [laughs]. I’m just saying because you showed me three great humidors, and one was from Milton Berle [given to President Kennedy] and you are the only one who has this, and I think the whole cigar world knows that, that you have the exclusive on that. Yes, you have one that you showed me also from Fidel Castro.

Fidel Castro was a dictator. He comes from a country that is known for its cigars. I think you have been to Cuba probably more often than I have. I have been only twice. One time I was there when my wife was interviewing Fidel Castro for her morning news show. Another time I went with her, just to visit. And both times I had the opportunity to go to the cigar factories and tour the cigar factories and watch them roll the cigars and read the news every morning to the people who are rolling the cigars, on the stage, reading the news, and it was great that we see all that. You see the great cigars they are rolling there. And we learned a lot about the cigar business, what makes a great cigar, the importance of the soil and the right weather, the right humidity and the way you treat the leaves when they get cut, how you hang them up and dry them.

Shanken: You’re having dinner with Fidel Castro. Smoking a cigar. You’re this close from him—what do you want to say to him?

Schwarzenegger: Now you’re the dictator. Create a democracy. You will be a legend. It will be a legacy that no one can ever ignore. I understand how he wanted to overthrow the [Batista government], because it was not fair, they did not really help the poor, it was for the rich, I understand all that. But at some point you have to understand and say that’s maybe not the direction that we want to stay in.

Shanken: You’ve been to Cuba, you’ve met the Cuban people, what are your feelings about the embargo?

Schwarzenegger: I hate embargos. I always feel that the world should be the trading place.

Shanken: So why is it, 60 years later, that we still have an embargo with our neighbor?

Schwarzenegger: I can understand that the people who are in politics, and get voted in by a large majority of Cubans, that this is a very sensitive issue with the Cuban people. You have to understand they were chased out of their homes. The Cuban people have been tortured and have been killed. They escaped, came over here, they will always look at that regime as an evil regime. And therefore let’s not go and take anything from them. I totally understand it.

I’m just talking about it from a cigar smoking point of view and from an economic point of view. I always think the world is a trading place and we should not put embargos on things. If we have a problem with Iranians, we should not put an embargo on Persian rugs. It doesn’t make sense to me. I understand that the politicians have to do this to get a lot of votes. I have a lot of Cuban friends, a lot of times when I go down to Miami, I don’t light up a Cuban cigar, I light up one from the Dominican Republic. I don’t want to throw it in their face and say I don’t care the way you feel. Because I do care. And I feel really sad that this kind of a history has happened to them. And so we have to be understanding and meet somewhere in the middle. I like Cuban cigars, and I have been smoking them my whole life along with Dominican cigars and Nicaraguan cigars.

Shanken: Speaking about cigars, Winston Churchill always had a cigar. Now you’re having dinner with him. What do you want to say to him?

Schwarzenegger: Winston, I love you, and I tell you why. Not only because you’re a great politician, and you were a great leader during the Second World War, a great negotiator, but you have great taste in cigars and you’re a great painter. I love your art. And the key thing everyone should learn from your situation is everyone told you no, it can’t be done. You’re wrong. And you proved that they were wrong. You did it. You fought Hitler, you went all out, you put everything on the line. He was a jewel.

Shanken: You’re now having dinner with JFK. What do you want to say to JFK?

Schwarzenegger: You have a lot of talent. You are an extraordinary speaker. You have led this country in a fantastic way—and we miss you.

Shanken: Wow. Those are very interesting responses. For the readers of Cigar Aficionado, when did you first become introduced to cigars? Why did you gravitate toward it?

Schwarzenegger: I was introduced to bogus, cheap cigars back in Munich [Germany] in the beer hall. We were 19 years old, and we kind of felt like grownups even though I was a kid still. When I was dating Maria, her father [Sargent Shriver] would take me downstairs after dinner and pull out the cigars. He would give me a cigar and say I don’t know if you’re man enough to smoke this [laughs]. I was dating his daughter, of course I wanted to show, if the bodybuilding and the muscles didn’t make him convinced I’m a man enough, I don’t know, maybe I had to smoke a cigar. This was back in ’78. And I smoked one. And a month later we got together again, and I went out and got him a cigar because I knew I had to pay him back.

Shanken: He told you not to inhale it, right?

Schwarzenegger: Of course. I don’t think that he thought that I would inhale it. I never was a cigarette smoker. Later on, when I did Conan the Barbarian, John Milius, the director, was a big cigar smoker. He loved the Montecristo No. 2. As a matter of fact, part of his deal to make the movie was to get so many boxes per week sent directly from Switzerland. So he shared them with me from the set. Then on the Conan set, in 1980, 1981, we would smoke cigars once a day, cigars that Milius would share with me after lunch. It was kind of a great celebration.

Shanken: And it was always a Monte 2.

Schwarzenegger: Exactly, yes. It was something I got into and then I kept smoking cigars after that, and I always had a good time. The funny thing about it was, I always understood people who were complaining about it. I understand that no one wants to inhale my crap that I’m blowing out. So when I was governor, I would sign a lot of the cigar legislation against smoking in public, or inside a restaurant, because I totally understood. I found it absurd when I was sitting in the airplane and on one side of the plane on Lufthansa it said smoking, and on the other side, which was six feet away, it said no smoking. I said how absurd is that? It was stupid. I said you have to be considerate and you have to find places where people can smoke, whether a specific room for smoking, or a patio—

Shanken: Ergo a tent.

Schwarzenegger: I’m so happy you mentioned the tent. Because the legislators tried to be very cute. They came to me and they said you’re signing this legislation about not smoking in public, we would like to send you a bill that says that you cannot smoke in the capitol. Well I said I’m not smoking in the capitol. The law says that you have to be 20 feet away from the building. I have an atrium where my office is, and we have measured 20 feet away from the building from each side of this atrium, and we are building a tent. We built a tent that is big enough so we can have inside meetings, and we are going to smoke our cigars in there. And they sent me a bill to forbid smoking in the smoking tent, and of course I didn’t sign it, I vetoed it with a nice veto message on it to let them know that this is unacceptable. No one is there that doesn’t want to smoke. In fact, Democrats and other legislators came down and asked me, begged me, can I come down and smoke? That’s how I got most of my deals done. We found something in common, which is smoking, and we smoked our stogies, took our jackets off, took our ties off, and we were sitting there and saying what are you working on? So we started working together. So this is what we did, and we got a lot of the things done because of the smoking tent.

Shanken: How often do you smoke today?

Schwarzenegger: On average, one cigar a day.

Shanken: And where do you smoke it?

Schwarzenegger: I have a patio at my house, which I created after we bought the house. By the swimming pool and by the jacuzzi I have a huge fireplace, a monster fireplace. And we put a roof over it. And there I sit at night and I smoke my cigar.

Shanken: How do you decide which cigar you’ll smoke each night?

Schwarzenegger: You know what? I don’t decide. I get each year on my birthday, and Christmastime, I get a lot of cigars as gifts. People don’t know what to give me, they say this guy has everything.

Shanken: So what do you like?

Schwarzenegger: One of the cigars that I have enjoyed a lot is a Fuente cigar, he sends me these very skinny ones, lanceros. And Cuban cigars, I smoke those. Montecristos.

Shanken: Do you prefer a fat cigar, a thin cigar, a long cigar, a short cigar?

Schwarzenegger: I would say a smaller cigar and a thinner cigar. But it really doesn’t matter. I smoke the gifts. Some of them are fat cigars, some of them are long cigars, some of them are skinny cigars. It makes no difference.

Shanken: Almost 30 years ago, you bought a set of golf clubs once owned by JFK. You paid a lot of money. Have you ever once used them?

Schwarzenegger: Yes [long pause]. I am so happy that you didn’t say did you use them twice, ’cause I didn’t [laughs]. I had to go and take some pictures with it, I had to go and use it. It is fantastic. There were not many sets, and his daughter got rid of them. And I was there at the right time to buy them and now it goes to my children.

Shanken: You have lived an incredible life, traveled the world, met various people and so forth. What’s left? Is there anything left on your bucket list?

Schwarzenegger: Well I am as hungry today as I was 50 years ago. And in my book, Be Useful, I talk about this mountain climber, Hillary, that was the first person to climb Mt. Everest. The press was waiting for him and asked him when he came back down, what was your feeling when you were up there? What did you think about? He looked around and said I’m on the highest mountain in the world. The only thing that came to my mind was, I saw another peak, which I never saw before. And I said to myself I wonder what it’s like to climb that peak?

When you achieve something it’s not about just sitting on your laurels and saying I made it. Bullshit. What did you make? Nothing. You accomplished something just now, but what’s the next thing? I believe in the philosophy of staying hungry. So every time I climb a peak, I see other peaks to climb.

To me, now, I found out my talent is—I did not know—is being a motivator. Someone that makes the impossible possible for people. I never, ever thought that I’m going to write a book about motivation and about self-help and all those things, but they said Arnold, your speeches are so effective when you go around the world and you motivate people. Your column, your newsletter that you write every day is the positive corner of the Internet, I get so many letters saying thank you so much for motivating me to get out of bed in the morning. Thank you for creating a vision for me.

This is my new thing now—help other people. To use all of my talents, my bodybuilding talents, what I learned in show business, what I learned in the governorship, to bring all of this together and help other people. I kind of have become the cheerleader and the motivator.

Shanken: Last question.

Schwarzenegger: You’ve been saying that.

Shanken: No, no, this is [laughs] the final question. And think about it before you answer it. It’s 100 years from now. And there’s an encyclopedia listing all the people who have lived. What do you want it to say after Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Schwarzenegger: I leave this up to the people. I’ll tell you why. It depends really—there are so many directions you can go with that. There are people in bodybuilding who will say he was the bodybuilding legend and he motivated so many millions of people to work out, there are other people who will say he was so great with the environment, there are other people who will say he appointed the most minority judges in California, there are so many different directions you can go.

I don’t really care, so long as you know that I always wanted to make the world a better place. To kind of hand over this world in better shape than I inherited, when I grew up. That is what it is all about. Not that I am maybe successful in it, but this is my effort. To make this a better place. To use everything that I have learned in my past and to make people aware that they have the responsibility to not just think about themselves, but to think about others. Because we all have to help each other.

When I think of all the amount of people who have helped me, to get where I am today, it is important to acknowledge that and let them know. That’s why in my book I list all the people who have been very helpful in my life, so that they know when you have made it, go and use your power of influence and knowledge. Because there’s so many people that need help.

Shanken: You were great. It was a pleasure.

Schwarzenegger: Thank you.