From executive producer and showrunner Nick Santora (Prison Break), Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his streaming series debut as lead in FUBAR, which is now streaming on Netflix. Opposite co-star Monica Barbaro (Top Gun: Maverick), the two play a father-daughter duo who discover that they share more than genetics when they find out they’re both working for the CIA. In an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Schwarzenegger teases the series, promising fans will get “the whole inventory” of Arnolds with the adventure-comedy.

In the eight-episode series, which also stars Jay Baruchel, Fabiana Udenio, Travis Van Winkle, and Adam Pally, CIA operative, Luke Brunner (Schwarzenegger), is finally able to retire and focus on his family. With every intention of spending time with his daughter, Emma (Barbaro), and winning back the love of his life, ex-wife Tally (Udenio), Luke is called back for one last mission. This final job requires him to rescue a fellow operative under the codename Panda, but when he finds out Panda is Emma, this father and daughter realize they have a lot to learn about each other.
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During their interview, which you can watch in the video below or read along in the transcript, Schwarzenegger and Barbaro reveal one of the most difficult scenes to capture, and it wasn’t because of the intense stunts or fighting choreography. They talk about improvising together, the many facets of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and what it feels like for Barbaro to go from working with Tom Cruise on Top Gun: Maverick to co-starring with the Terminator himself.

MONICA BARBARO: I think, based on his shirt, he’s hoping to interview you.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh, who’s on the shirt– Oh, yeah, that’s me! That’s a good-looking shirt. You’re the man!

COLLIDER: What’s funny is I’ve worn this shirt all over the planet and it always gets a reaction from people, and I’m like, “I can’t believe I’m gonna get to talk to you today, and I will of, course, wear this shirt.”

SCHWARZENEGGER: So when you take it off, could you just stand it up in the corner or do you wash it every day?

[Laughs] No, the shirt gets washed often. I’m not one of those people that needs to wear it, you know, constantly. Arnold, I don’t know who this person is, but if someone has never seen anything you’ve done before, what is the first thing you’d like them watching and why?

SCHWARZENEGGER: I would tell them to watch FUBAR. The simple reason is because – not that I’m trying to hype FUBAR now, or to say that it’s coming out on, you know, May 25, or anything, this is totally relevant in this case.

BARBARO: Only on Netflix…

SCHWARZENEGGER: What I’m trying to tell– you said Netflix? Did I forget Netflix? I forgot Netflix, sorry about that. But in any case, what I’m saying is, it just has the whole combination, or the whole inventory, so to speak, of different styles of acting in there in one show. So there’s the action in there, there’s the intense Arnold in there, there’s the funny Arnold, there’s the generous Arnold in there, and there is the kind of more sincere, and all of those different angles and dimensions, I think, in there. So I think that’s one of the things that they can watch.

If it comes to something else, what should they watch? I think if they watch my speech after the insurrection on January 6th, I think that would give them, also, another idea of another Arnold. So there’s just all these different kind of dimensions, and I think that’s what Netflix is doing with the documentary they’re coming out with, is to show the different Arnolds.

Monica, you have worked with Tom Cruise, you now work with Arnold, have you thought about playing the lottery?

BARBARO: [Laughs] I feel like I’m playing it and winning, I think, with my career right now. That’s a good point. But no, yeah, sure, I’ll buy a ticket today.

Just something I’m thinking about.

BARBARO: Yeah, that’s solid.

One of the scenes I enjoyed, it was a scene with you two and the puppets, and I was just thinking, how many takes did it take to actually do that scene without laughing, so you could actually get a take?

BARBARO: We did laugh a lot. The funny thing about filming anything is that you do so many different takes and so many angles that, I think by the 11th hour, we’re like, “Is anyone still laughing because we’ve been doing this over and over and over again?” But I think it hopefully lasted.

Yeah, I was breaking a lot. [To Schwarzenegger] I couldn’t believe how high pitched your voice– or how high pitched you really think I sound, that was pretty funny. I was working on his voice and I was asking him about, you know, I was like, “Will you say the lines that I say of yours in your voice?” And he was like, “The thing about an Arnold impression is that it doesn’t actually sound like me.” It’s actually turned into its own sort of thing, and I was watching videos, watching other people’s impersonations, Bill Hader has probably the best one, and I was like, “Oh, yeah!” It’s almost taken on its own character, in a way, if you really, like pound for pound or word for word, listen to an impression versus the way he actually speaks it. He doesn’t really quite sound the way the impersonations sound. So from there, it was just sort of like, “Okay, have fun with whatever version of it you want to.”

SCHWARZENEGGER: I have to say that I cracked up and screwed up a lot of takes because I remember the director got very frustrated at one point.

BARBARO: I had his puppet kiss his muscle, and that made him break. It made me feel good [laughs].

SCHWARZENEGGER: What would happen was that, somehow, Monica was able to do every take a little differently, and so there was always another schtick in there that made me surprised and made me laugh. So eventually, the guy said to me, the director said, “Hey, Arnold, let’s settle down. Do you need a few minutes? Because I would like to get one take where you don’t laugh because he’s supposed to be very serious. And remember, you’re in front of your psychiatrist, your CIA psychiatrist, you know, kind of advice, you’re sitting in front of him, he’s telling you this is a good way to get rid of the hostilities that you have towards each other,” and blah, blah, blah. So he says I need a serious scene. And so then we did a few takes in the serious way.

BARBARO: The nice thing was, at the end of the part was that was scripted, they were like, “Okay, at the end there, you can just be yelling at each other.” And I felt like we both were like, “Okay!” And we took that and ran with it, and I don’t think the door slam was scripted. We had some fun with it for sure.

Image via Netflix

What do you think soon-to-be fans of the show would be surprised to learn about the actual making of the show?

BARBARO: That every episode was filmed in eight days.

SCHWARZENEGGER: It was?

BARBARO: Yeah, 8 to 10, there were some double units–

SCHWARZENEGGER: How good were you with math when you went to school?

BARBARO: It’s eight days an episode! Wasn’t it?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Anyway, so I’m gonna say, also, eight days because we don’t want to fight here in front of you.

BARBARO: Not again, Arnold.

SCHWARZENEGGER: But as soon as you get off the screen, don’t be worried, there will just be a little bit of screaming…

BARBARO: Some fact-checking…

SCHWARZENEGGER: And then she will be hitting me again, and all this kind of stuff. It will be elderly abuse.

FUBAR premieres only on Netflix on May 25. Check out the trailer below, and check back with Collider for more interviews with the cast.