10 Quick Questions for Tom Arnold

By

Gayle Jo Carter,

Tom Arnold, 64, reunites with his True Lies costar and real-life friend Arnold Schwarzenegger in the new Netflix series FUBAR. He tells AARP how he trimmed down for the role, how he’s

handling late-in-life fatherhood and how he’s feeling after suffering a stroke last year.

Tell us about your role in Fubar.

They wrote a great character. It’s the CIA, and [my character’s] the torture guy. Arnold [Schwarzenegger’s] character [is on the verge of retirement and] has moved on from the torture, but …

Arnold’s daughter’s child needs a bone marrow donor, and we need to track her long-gone baby daddy down. We track him down and he won’t [donate]. They call me in to get the bone marrow from

him. It’s a quite funny and sort of creepy character.

Have you kept in touch with Arnold over the years?

I have this long, very long, personal relationship with him. And sometimes I step back and go, I can’t believe I’m friends with this guy. My kids [son Jax, 10, and daughter Quinn, 7, with

ex-wife Ashley Groussman] are like, “We can’t believe you’re friends with that guy.” Because he’s done so many incredible things. I still learn things from him. My son has a poster of Arnold

Schwarzenegger posing in one of his muscle competitions in his room. I’m not gonna let [my kids] watch the [FUBAR] episode, but I’m gonna take them to the premiere, and they’re very

excited.

Aren’t you and Arnold a little old to still be playing action heroes?

I did think, Well, he’s 75. I wonder if he’s into all this action stuff. I have to tell you — he’s working on FUBAR, and somebody had gotten COVID — one of the main actors — and [Arnold] had

to work for a week, 14-hour days, by himself, doing all of his stuff. I could just tell he was really into it. The first thing he said [to me was], “Let’s go for a bike ride.” I thought

motorcycle — he’s, like, bicycle. Oh my gosh, I have been on a bicycle, but not with traffic, the way he rides it. Even though I’ve lost 80 pounds [since] I had a stroke. I said, Boy, I hope

I can. It was great. The thing about him is, he always seizes the day, every day.