BATTLE TESTED
EARLIER THIS SUMMER, Michael Biehn addressed the world. “Listen! And understand!” he barked, lowering a striped mask covering his nose and mouth. “That virus is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or shame. And it absolutely will not stop…until we stay at home.” Then he turned away from the camera, ready for a brisk exit. “Kyle Reese — I’m out!”
The 28-second video got uploaded to the Skynet-like digital consciousness that is Twitter, and locked-down movie fans everywhere exploded with excitement. “JOIN THE RESISTANCE!” posted one. “He still has his fastball,” said another. Someone even synced up the speech with Biehn’s original version from The Terminator .
Biehn himself, not a social media user, was surprised by the resulting clamour. “I’m not so good when it comes to the movie star stuff,” he tells Empire now. “I’ve never had a publicist. I was just messing around, having fun with my kid or whatever, and something came to me about The Terminator and the virus. My wife Jennifer said, ‘You should shoot that and put it online.’ I was a little bit reticent, but a lot of my friends and family weren’t really getting the seriousness of social distancing, so I texted it to all my friends.”
The transmission may or may not have saved lives. But one thing’s for sure: anyone whose feed it popped into would have paid attention.
