Cameron reveals how he got Linda Hamilton to return for Terminator 6

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The new TERMINATOR movie took a huge step forward recently by announcing that Linda Hamilton would return to the role of Sarah Connor for the upcoming series of films. The actress has not played the character since TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY in 1991 and fans were fairly confident Hamilton’s cyborg hunting days were done. James Cameron recently opened up about how he got Hamilton to return to the role, citing how he got her to return for more adventures with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

 Cameron and TERMINATOR 6 director Tim Miller sat down with THR to talk about the project, and the two joked around about being terrified to approach Hamilton (who is also Cameron’s ex-wife) about returning to the series:

Miller: Jim was fucking terrified.

Cameron: I was. It took me a week just to get up the nerve. No, that's not true. Linda and I have a great relationship.

Truth is, all Cameron had to do was convince her that this was about maintaining the series’ legacy and that it was up to them to show everybody “how it’s done.”

I called her up, and I said: "Look, we could rest on our laurels. It’s ours to lose, in a sense. We created this thing several decades ago. But, here’s what can be really cool. You can come back and show everybody how it’s done.”  Because in my mind, it hasn’t been done a whole lot since the way she did it back in ’91.

Miller went on to talk about how men like Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Bruce Willis are still bashing skulls at their age, but that there are no older women doing the same thing. Miller said the movie will "make a huge f@cking statement to have her be the really seasoned warrior that she's become."

Seeing those first images of Hamilton in T6 will probably be like a gut punch right in the nostalgia. We've seen Arny in post-JUDGEMENT DAY films like RISE OF THE MACHINES and GENISYS, so we know what he'll look like and what to expect. I have 100 percent confidence that Hamilton will look just as awesome and intimidating as ever and, like Cameron said, show us how it's done.