Arnold Schwarzenegger was told his accent was too creepy and his frame was too bulky for leading Hollywood roles in the 1970s.
The 69-year-old acting legend admits Hollywood producers said he didn't have what to takes to be a household name by producers when he starting out in his career.
''In Hollywood, they said I would never become a leading man," he told i newspaper.
''They used to say 'your body is too big'. This is the 1970s and people like Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino and Woody Allen, they are sex symbols. I said 'Oh Jesus'.
''Then they said 'Plus your accent gives me the creeps. We can use you maybe to play a Nazi or something like that'.''
Schwarzenegger, who has since gone one to become a screen icon, is grateful for the support of directors such as Conan the Barbarian filmmaker John Milus and his Terminator helmsman James Cameron, who praised him for the attributes he was previously dismissed over.
''John Milius said in the press conference: 'If we didn't have Schwarzenegger, we would have to build one.' In that moment my body became a plus.
''After that I did 'Terminator' and James Cameron at a press conference said 'what really makes this movie work is Arnie talks like machine'.
''I don't know if it was meant as a compliment," he added.
''All of sudden it became acceptable, and then it changed from acceptable to hip, then it ended up that I had the most-quoted lines in movies because I said things different and sometimes wrong.''
Schwarzenegger's latest project finds him narrating new documentary, Wonders of the Sea 3D.
Directed by Jean-Michel Cousteau and Jean-Jacques Mantello, the film advocates the need to keep our oceans clean if we are to avoid an environmental catastrophe.
