Among British actor Miriam Margolyes’ most famous roles are in the Harry Potter franchise, Romeo + Juliet, and The Age of Innocence, among others. But she’s also known for being direct and speaking her mind, which is why perhaps it’s no surprise that she was recently very open about her experience working with Arnold Schwarzenegger on the 1999 horror movie End of Days. During a new interview on news.com.au’s podcast I’ve Got News for You, Margolyes was asked if there are any A-list celebrities she didn’t enjoy meeting or working with. The actor immediately knew her answer—though it took her a moment to remember his name. Read on to see what she had to say about the actor-turned-politician’s allegedly questionable behavior.
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Schwarzenegger and Margolyes appeared together in End of Days, which is about a detective (Schwarzenegger) who must save a woman (Robin Tunney) who has been chosen to conceive the Antichrist with Satan (Gabriel Byrne). Margolyes played Mabel, who is part of Satan’s mission and gets into a physical fight with Schwarzenegger’s character.
In response to a question about any co-stars or actors she’s met who she wasn’t a fan of, Margolyes responded, “I didn’t like the wrestler, you know, from Austria. What’s his name?” When the host helped her remember, she continued, “Schwarzenegger. I couldn’t think of his name for a minute. Schwarzenegger. Didn’t care for him.”
The 81-year-old actor explained, “He’s a bit too full of himself. I don’t care for him at all. He’s a Republican, which I don’t like. And he was actually quite rude.”
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Why did Margolyes find Schwarzenegger rude? Here’s how she tells it.
“He farted in my face. Now, I fart. Of course I do. But I don’t fart in people’s faces. He did it deliberately right in my face,” Margolyes told I’ve Got News for You.
Asked when and where this happened, she explained, “I can’t remember the date, but it was during the filming of End of Days in Los Angeles. And I was playing Satan’s sister, and [Schwarzenegger’s character] was killing me, so he had me in a position where I couldn’t escape and lying on the floor (laughs).” She added, “And he just farted. It wasn’t on film, it was in one of the pauses, but I haven’t forgiven him for it.”
This isn’t the first time Margolyes has shared her memories of working with Schwarzenegger. In a 2016 piece for The Guardian, she called him a “pig” and spoke out about how he allegedly treated other women.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger is a pig of a man,” Margolyes said. “We worked together [on the blockbuster End of Days] in 1999, and although he was relatively professional with me—because he didn’t fancy me—he was awfully gropey with women he was interested in. He thought a lot of himself, but I wasn’t surprised: he was a bodybuilder from Austria who went on to became a worldwide star.”
Schwarzenegger addressed groping claims about him in 2003, just before he was elected governor of California. (He served in the office until 2011.)
“It is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right which I thought then was playful,” he said, according to The Guardian. “But now I recognize that I offended people. Those people that I have offended, I want to say to them I am deeply sorry about that and I apologize because that’s not what I’m trying to do.”
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Margolyes has told her story about filming the scene with Schwarzenegger before. And she said that she let him know how upset she was at the time.
“I was in the horror film End of Days with him in 1999, playing the Devil’s servant Mabel,” she told Reader’s Digest UK. “I had my throat sliced by a glass table at the end, and I remember Schwarzenegger farted right in my face when I was down on the floor, trying not to move. I shouted, ‘[Expletive] you, Arnie!’ I was really cross.”