Linda Hamilton Says Sarah Connor is “still a wildcard” in ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’
After 28 years Linda Hamilton is returning to the role of Sarah Connor. The new film, Terminator: Dark Fate comes to theaters this November. Which marks the first time Hamilton has portrayed the character since 1991 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Also joining the fun in Dark Fate is Arnold Schwarzenegger and his character the T-800. The film also stars Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, and Diego Boneta. Directed by Tim Miller (Deadpool) and produced by James Cameron and David Ellison. The film acts as a follow-up to the original two films from Cameron.
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In a recent exclusive conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Hamilton revealed she had apprehensions about returning. She also revealed why she felt it was the right time to bring Connor back. “There is a real gift in that so much time has passed, and that gives me so much more to explore with the character. Sarah Connor is the same person but I wanted to see how the difference in events have changed her and shaped her and send her forward. There was meat there. I didn’t want to just recycle the same idea. It’s a woman who has a different mission, a different story, so I wanted to see what we could do with that.”
“It’s not like riding a bike, I’ll tell you that.”
Hamilton says she thought she was finished with the character of Sarah Connor. “It was many, many years of just being sure that it was done, that I was done. I kept saying, ‘Yeah, yeah, if I’m in one now it’s like the geriatrics era.’ [Laughs] Which is actually kind of true. I never saw this coming, which made it that much more interesting”. However, coming back was not as easy as Hamilton thought it would be. She says that building Connor’s back story was just as hard as getting in shape for the role.
“It’s not like riding a bike, I’ll tell you that. [Laughs] Of course, one assumes if you put in the same hard work, you get the same results, so I went straight back into training really hard and it’s like, ‘Oh my god, you need hormones to put muscle on!’ So just starting with the basic cosmetics of the character and all of the things that I had to sort of include in my new reality as Sarah Connor.
“But, really, it’s about building her backstory and figuring out where she’s been and who she is today. You have a character but so many things have impacted her in the last 30 years that it was like starting over, and yet, there is an echo of the younger Sarah Conner in everything that I had to create. But no, I worked damn hard. I spent a year-plus training really hard and working on her walk and exploring her deep sorrows and just so many elements, and more so, because there is a path there. By the time we started, I felt ready, but a year-plus before that, I was pretty overwhelmed with a sense of obligation and duty and love for the character, just really trying to make sure that we honored the past and created something new for the future.”
“A wildcard without a real true mission is a lot more unpredictable.”
So where do we see Sarah Connor’s story pick up in Dark Fate? Hamilton says that she’s still a wildcard. “She’s a woman without a country. Her original mission has changed due to circumstances and she really doesn’t have a team anymore, she just has a thirst for vengeance, so that makes her very alone. She’s still a wildcard, but a wildcard without a real true mission is a lot more unpredictable. Basically very hard for her to find her humanity, so once again we get to take a journey on that level, to have some deep things that need to be rediscovered for her survival.”
You can check out the teaser trailer below and Terminator: Dark Fate opens in theaters on Nov. 1st. Are you excited for Sarah Connor’s return? Leave us a comment and let us know! Be sure to follow ScaryNerd for more of all things horror. You can find the full interview here.
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