Arnold Schwarzenegger Admits He Moved to U.S. at Age 21 To ‘Become Famous and Rich’ After ‘Falling in Love’ With ‘Glamour’ of Hollywood

“Terminator” star Arnold Schwarzenegger has opened up about the moment that he first “fell in love with America” as a 10-year-old boy in Austria—admitting that he quickly became obsessed with moving to the U.S. because he believed it would help him to “become famous and rich.”

The 77-year-old actor and former governor of California from 2003 to 2011, emigrated to the U.S. in 1968 at the age of 21. However, his dream of living in Los Angeles began long before, when he was a young schoolboy living in the Austrian town of Thal.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Schwarzenegger, who is the father of “White Lotus” star Patrick Schwarzenegger, recalled his unhappiness with his life in Austria, explaining that he “always had a feeling deep down” that he was meant for bigger things than he’d ever be able to achieve in his home country.

Then, at age 10, inspiration struck in the form of a classroom introduction to the U.S. and its alluring attractions.

“At age 10, I fell in love with America. That came from watching film rolls in school,” he recalled. “The teacher would advance the strips by turning a knob, showing one image at a time. I was blown away. They were about things like the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and cars with huge fins driving on U.S. highways with six lanes on each side. All of it was over the top.”

However, when the presentation pivoted to a reel on Hollywood, Schwarzenegger said he knew then and there that his future lay, not in Austria, but in Los Angeles, which he believed would provide him with the perfect setting to seek out fame and fortune.

“At some point, there was a roll on Hollywood. I’d never seen anything like it—the glamour, the lights, and the houses. I said to myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ I wanted to be in America and to become famous and rich,” he admitted.

Still, the young Schwarzenegger had one major hurdle standing between him and his dream of global superstardom and untold wealth: how he was going to engineer his overseas move.

That mystery plagued him for years, until he “stumbled into bodybuilding” and realized that the sport could very well serve as the foundation for his American dream.

Joking that he spent much of his teenage years desperately trying to “look like a he-man,” Schwarzenegger credited former bodybuilder Roy “Reg” Park for helping him to realize how success in the sport could propel him to bigger and better things in the future.

“I read that Reg won Mr. Universe three times and became an actor. My dream was possible. All of my time was spent in this world of physical fitness, building up muscles to compete in contests and fantasizing about movie stardom,” he recalled.

Eventually, all of his time in the gym paid off when he claimed his first Mr. Universe title in 1968—and quickly found himself earning attention from American fans of bodybuilding. One fan flew him to Los Angeles and effectively sponsored his career, even putting him up in an apartment near the iconic Gold’s Gym in Venice.

Yet the reality of life in L.A. was not, as it turns out, all it had promised to be for Schwarzenegger.

He confessed that he was initially horrified by the “dirty” sidewalks in Venice and the seemingly open drug trade, noting that the beachfront community looked nothing like the glamorous New York City skyline he had come to envision as his future home.

Yet it didn’t take long for his vision of Hollywood to be brought to life—when he turned his focus from bodybuilding to acting, making his on-screen debut in the 1970 movie “Hercules in New York,” a role that led to more opportunities.

By 1982, he’d landed his biggest role yet, starring in the hit movie “Conan the Barbarian,” which helped to catapult him to the global superstardom that he had long dreamed of—turning him into one of the industry’s leading action stars in the process.

Just two years later, his appearance in “The Terminator” cemented his status as a Hollywood heavyweight—and remains one of his most iconic roles to date.

As of July 2025, Schwarzenegger has 81 acting credits to his name, according to IMDB, and he has multiple other projects in the works, including “The Legend of Conan,” a sequel to the wildly popular first installment of the “Conan” franchise.

But while he remains a consistent feature on the big screen, the actor has also turned his attentions to pursuits outside of acting—launching himself into politics in the early 2000s, when he ran for governor of California, an office he held for two terms.

Schwarzenegger, who became a U.S. citizen in 1983, has called California home ever since he landed in Venice as a 21-year-old Hollywood hopeful. However, his accommodations have certainly come a long way in the years since then.

Today, the actor resides in a stunning estate in Brentwood, which he purchased for $4.9 million in 2002, when he was still married to Maria Shriver. The couple divorced in 2021.

The extraordinary property is located inside a gated community and features 6 acres of land, which Schwarzenegger and his current partner, Heather Milligan, use to house their many pets, which include a donkey and a miniature horse.

“It’s a perfect place where I can see the foliage and the mountains. I’m close to town, it’s private, and I have all my pet animals,” the actor told the Journal. Many of his animals are allowed to freely roam in and out of the property courtesy of the floor-to-ceiling windows, which can be opened up to the grounds.