Coolly walking away from the slow-motion fireball that is California, exiting governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he is intent on returning to what he, for the sake of discussion, does best: acting, potentially in one of three scripts that he detailed for Austrian newspaper the Krone (via The Guardian). One, which Schwarzenegger said is “delighting me particularly,” is a true story that would find him playing an older German soldier—or you could just say Nazi—who refuses orders to execute a group of prisoners that includes “a bunch of kids,” choosing instead to risk his own life escorting them to safety. (It’s Schindler’s List meets Kindergarten Cop.)
Many have already speculated that the script he’s referring to is likely With Wings As Eagles by Braveheart scribe Randall Wallace, based on James J. Cullen’s nonfiction book Ostersmann’s War. The project has been in circulation with Schwarzenegger attached since the mid-’90s, with this Entertainment Weekly article from 1996 even mentioning that it would “likely be the brawny star's follow-up to Batman And Robin, in which he plays the icy Mr. Freeze.” What innocent times those were.
Anyway, whether he actually makes Eagles his first post-politics film or not, Schwarzenegger does say that a return to acting is inevitable—although he cites Clint Eastwood as his late-career role model, suggesting that he’s looking to gravitate to quieter, lower-budget features rather than the more, you know, Schwarzeneggerian films. “Throwing myself around the room and shooting people is no longer in there," he adds. "[But] I'm like a sponge that soaks up knowledge and is constantly willing to learn new things." Your move, Mike Leigh.