Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Sabotage press conference in London

Growing up in the 1980s and 90s, films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger seemed to be a staple feature of life. Arnie made a successful name for himself as the star of such family friendly movies as Twins, Kindergarten Cop and Junior as well as positioning himself as Hollywood’s ultimate action man with the Terminator series, while Predator, Total Recall, True Lies and Eraser were just some of the many other films he thrilled audiences with before the turn of the millennium.

Determined to add yet more strings to his bow, the Austrian-born former bodybuilder entered politics and in 2011 ended his role as Governor of California after seven years in office. After leaving however, it was revealed he had fathered a child with family maid Mildred Baena and he split from his wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver, with whom he has four children.

Throwing himself back into movie-making mode, Arnie shunned retirement and his latest action film, Sabotage, is about to hit UK cinemas.

As I watch Arnie enter the London press conference to discuss the project – which is directed by David Ayer and sees the 67-year-old play John ‘Breacher’ Wharton, the chief of a Drugs Enforcement Agency team – the veteran actor seems in good spirits and happy to answer questions about the film and his future plans.

Of Ayer, Arnie is full of admiration: “I think he’s a very talented man. He’s a fantastic writer and when you see his directing in End of Watch you can see he likes action and doing as many real things on the screen as possible.”

And when it came to making the action look realistic, the cast of Sabotage were not going to be cutting any corners. “Sabotage is totally different to a typical Hollywood movie,” Arnold explains. “David did a great job. What I also liked was his insistence for us to train with the Los Angeles SWAT team, so when we got to the set we could really act out the characters really well and know how to handle the weapons.”

“David Ayer picked really tough guys (for the Sabotage cast). All of them went to martial arts training, they all put on the headgear, even the girls. He wanted everyone to come to set and really go all out and be thrown around and do all the different stunts as much as possible.”

He continues: “For this film we did three months of training. I’m coming from the body building background where it’s all about reps. To me it’s the same with acting: the more often you do a scene, the more you rehearse, the more you practise whatever you need to do, the better you are going to be on the screen.”

Arnold describes his character Breacher as like a “flawed hero”, who deviates from his mission in order to get revenge for the murder of his family. Has he consciously planned to seek out a different kind of character now he has returned to acting?

“I don’t have a master programme,” the actor insists. “I think it has something to do with when you are a certain age, especially coming out of the government job, you see the world a little bit more complex than it really is. Therefore you start getting attracted to characters that are written more complex and are more dimensional. I try to do those characters now but maybe 20 years ago I wouldn’t have been trying for the very same script.”

Sam Worthington stars alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in Sabotage

Arnold may be famous for being a long-standing Hollywood action man but the “Governator” himself admits even he isn’t invincible.

“If there’s anything dangerous where you can get injuries the stunt guys will take over, that’s usually the rule,” he explains. “If someone says they do all their stunts it’s all nonsense because the fact of the matter is no production will want an actor to do some high jumps where you can twist an ankle or something like that. It’s nothing major but it would take you out of the movie and it would shut down the movie, so they don’t like you to get injured.”

“I get injured on every movie but they’re usually smaller things like banging my head on the camera or something like that, then you get stitched up quickly in an emergency room, then you come right back. Visual effects can wipe out the stitches. But if you have a broken leg or a torn shoulder that means they have to shut down the production.”

And perhaps Arnold’s success in the film world is partly down to the fact he is determined to go the extra mile if it means more chance of success. “For this film we did three months of training,” he explains. And of upcoming film, Terminator: Genesis, he says: “I don’t have it in the contract that I have to go down to New Orleans to practise, rehearse, to do camera tests for wardrobe, there’s nothing in my contract for that but of course I want to go,” he says. “I want the director Alan Taylor to have the ability to make the right choices. This is why I go down for three or four days, hang out with the director, do all the tests, work with the stunt co-ordinators. It’s not in the contract but you do it because common sense tells you this is the right thing to do to make the movie successful.”

Meanwhile, fans of Arnold’s earlier work have several projects to look forward to as he reprises his roles of Conan, Terminator and Julius Benedict of Twins in future films. “Some ideas work and some don’t but I believe very strongly in those characters and in those movies that they do,” says Arnold.

The 1988 comedy Twins saw Arnie team up with Danny DeVito to play an unlikely pair of brothers. The sequel Triplets is expected to see Eddie Murphy join the cast as their other sibling. Arnold says: “We haven’t done any rehearsal for Triplets yet but I have met with Eddie Murphy several times and I admire him as an actor, as a talent. He’s very, very funny, he’s an extraordinary actor and he looks great in this movie, perfect in Triplets to play one of our brothers.”

And when asked if Arnie is jealous of fellow action hero actor Liam Neeson, he is gracious in his reply: “Am I jealous of him? No! I’m not jealous of anybody. I love being me but I do admire people and he is one of the people that I admire.”

Sabotage is released nationwide on 9 May